


Solemnis

by El_Conservatore



Series: Emma's Story [1]
Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 22:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 77,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10885944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/El_Conservatore/pseuds/El_Conservatore
Summary: Trying to pay attention to something you don't care about is a challenge. Doing so under duress, even more so. Emma Sinclair wants something more than a classroom and four walls, but there's nothing she can do about it. Maybe, if she's lucky, she might get a chance to do something, other than just sit here and be bored. That never happens though, right? [Spinoff of "To The Stars".]





	1. Arbitrary Arbitrage

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To the Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/777002) by [Hieronym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hieronym/pseuds/Hieronym). 



Well you know, Earth was never attacked, ever, during the Contact War. So we had all the amenities, right? Anything you wanted, you could get as long as you still had allocs for that month. And if you didn't have allocs left, well, you could always wait another month and you'd be set. So it was always very easy to go out and have a bit of fun if you wanted to get away from the day to day life of it all.

_-Captain Madison Thatcher, C Company, 1st Regiment, 5th Magical Division, Third Army Group of the Nile_

* * *

I remember once, as a kid, looking out from one of the greenspace towers and thinking: "Wow, this is really cool. It'd be great if I could fly around in here." I never figured I'd be able to do it for real just a few years later.

_-First Lieutenant Abigail Fischer, A Company, 2nd Regiment, 8th Magical Division, Second Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

"It's Ramirez with the ball," read the captioning. "Ramirez passes to Marquez to Romero who fires a high loop- and it's Mendez with the header to goal!"

"One, zero, to Spain," Emma Sinclair whispered to herself, fighting a grin as Spain's national football team scored the first, possibly only, goal of the game. A carryover from the twentieth century, not even the Unification Wars and implants could stamp out football. Speed, accuracy, and a keen mind were, as they always had, necessary to win. It was The One Thing in life for Emma, her passion and her obsession.

It was something she hadn't been able to do for two years.

Flicking the viewport to the side with a mental nudge, Emma returned her attention to Mandatory Session. She skimmed over what had been written on the board. As expected, she had no idea what was going on. With a well practiced flick, Emma opened her, rather old fashioned, notepad and pulled up the instant messenger.

"Ayumi, what's going on?" she wrote.

Her messenger blinked back momentarily: "Ugh, Emma, can't you stop watching football during Mandatory Session at least?" Ayumi's eye roll was clearly audible through the text.

She rapidly scribbled back: "Wasn't watching a game."

"Sure you weren't, just like you definitely haven't downloaded a mod that makes a facsimile of a movie pass," Ayumi sighed. "I'll forward my notes to you later, but the gist of what's going on is..."

Emma carefully summarized Ayumi's summary, pausing occasionally to watch the instructor as he continued droning on. Emma was well practiced in the art of faking attention.

The Sinclairs were relatively new to Mitkaihara City. Emma's family had been asked to transfer over by a member of the Shizuki Matriarchy, for reasons Emma wasn't entirely familiar with. All she knew was that she was being pulled away from friends she'd known for a decade to somewhere completely new. Emma had contracted a reputation of surliness as a result. Even now, she had few acquaintances, and only the one friend, Ayumi.

"Thanks for the help," Emma said later, after Mandatory Session ended. The students were now splitting up for their respective courses.

Ayumi sighed as they walked towards the Common Area. "Just... keep it to a minimum, will you? I mean, I get it, you'd rather be doing football, but seeing as you refuse to join any of the regional teams-"

"-because they all suck harder than-"

"-you're going to have to at least put up with this until your parents give up," finished Ayumi, blithely ignoring Emma's protests.

"Yeah, like that'll ever happen," said Emma sourly, folding her arms and glaring at the floor beneath them. "What is it with parents anyway?"

"Eh, can't live with them, can't live without them," shrugged Ayumi. "Maybe it'd help if you grew your hair out a bit?"

"But I like it this way!" protested Emma, putting her hands protectively on her lighter brown hair, cut to the nape of her neck. It had originally been cut to make it easier to play football, and had never been changed since.

"But it makes you look less, eh, stereotypically feminine," said Ayumi with a shrug. "I dunno, maybe it'll make them think you're transitioning into non-sporting life better."

"What next then, taking up the tea ceremony?" asked Emma flatly with a raised eyebrow. "Ayumi, I'm not going to waste my time appeasing my parents until I get emancipated. Besides, that's not even the problem!"

Ayumi rolled her eyes. "Whatever, have it your way then. Where's your sister?"

Emma looked around. "Hmmm... ah, there she is. Hey, Anna!"

Anna Sinclair looked up from the floor with a start. The Sinclairs were twins. The only really distinguishing features between the two were their hair and their clothing. Emma wore t-shirts and capris with her short hair, while Anna preferred skirts and long sleeved shirts. Occasionally, she'd with a jacket or vest thrown over the top, but Emma did that too, which rendered it moot.

Alerted, now, Anna weaved her way through the crowd of milling students and joined the two girls.

"What were you thinking about?" asked Ayumi.

"Well, we went over high risk factors in a supply chain during Mandatory today," began Anna, scratching her nose thoughtfully. "I was thinking about something I learned a week ago about migrating sub-networks."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mmhm. See, it turns out that if you have a closed sub-network that performs a service function but doesn't have any material outputs-"

Emma tuned out of the conversation to check the game again. The game between Spain and its opponent, Germany, had evened out and become very tense. Germany was making a hard push on Spain's defensive center. It was a classic maneuver. Breaking the enemy's line allowed you to drive directly to the heart of their formation. From there, the only thing preventing your strikers from scoring was the goal keeper, and a well organized set of passes could defeat that.

As Emma watched, Germany's offense forced the Spanish to retreat to maintain their line. The Spanish wing backs retreated towards the goal, preventing the German left and right attackers from slipping past and getting a clean shot. Suddenly, the German offensive was stalling, each defender moving into position to block the-

"What do you think, Emma?" asked Ayumi.

Emma blinked and hurriedly re-played the conversation. "Um... I'm pretty sure it'd work?" she hedged, drawing a hasty conclusion. "If you maintain enough AIs to handle the sub-routine, you can devote more personnel to ensuring that the risk is managed, right?"

"AIs, huh?" mused Anna, leaning back in her seat and considering it. "I guess I forgot about them. But wouldn't the time taken to program them be a big resource sink? And it's not like Governance would just let you make one."

"Well, you could ad hoc a function from various AIs that have similar functions," Ayumi pointed out. "Technically speaking, a starship AI can perform the calculations required to manufacture a part in three dimensions."

"Yeah, but that'd be a huge waste of a starship AI, wouldn't it?" asked Anna rhetorically, "After all, the one is designed to calculate FTL paths, while here you only need it to make sure a part is made in the shortest time possible."

"Why not-"

Emma tuned out again, leaving the two to their ever expanding argument. Anna and Ayumi did this often, constantly pushing some silly idea towards the absolute extreme of its logical boundary. Both were on track to become engineers. Anna was still building the foundations for an Industrial Systems and Logistics certification. Ayumi, meanwhile, was working towards getting a Complex System Dynamics certification. Total nerds, the two of them, but it did explain why they were friends.

Presumably, Emma was going to go into the same field as her sister, but she found the material to be extremely dull. Emma scowled at the floor between the group's feet. They'd been happy in London. She had football, Anna had her studies, her parents had their work. As lives went these days, it had been pretty average, but she had been content. Now though...

Emma's chronometer dinged and reminded her that she needed to get to her next class soon. Maybe Interstellar Supply Chains would be more interesting?

* * *

Emma flopped bonelessly onto the couch in her family's living room. The one good thing about moving to Mitakihara City was that her family had landed a fairly spacious apartment on the 580th floor. Emma and Anna's bedrooms were a little small now, and their parents' bedroom was only a little bigger. However, the wide open living-room-slash-kitchen made up for it in spades. The combined space allowed for the maximum of stretching out and relaxing after a long day.

Painted a pale blue, the walls and ceiling of the living room were matched by a cream-colored carpet. The furniture had been modulated to recall 20th Century Swedish Minimalism, with the furniture blocks made out of springy synthwood and soft memory foam. The combined effect was not unlike a particularly a firm hug from one side. Consequently, the couch was, in Emma's opinion, a particularly excellent place to take a nice nap.

The kitchen was decorated similarly, switching the carpet out for tile but maintaining the color scheme. Several barstools faced the white colored kitchen island, within which was installed the food synthesizer. The surrounding counter space was dominated by storage for cutlery and plates, but also included an autosink, and a rack of alcoholic beverages. Chief among these was a decanter of hand-made whiskey, a favorite of their father's. It was relatively empty.

"Do you want anything to drink?" asked Anna. She was leaning against the island with a mug of synthesized tea in her hand.

"Eh, don't bother," groaned Emma, curling up with a small yawn and tucking her head under her arms. "I'm too tired to care."

"You haven't even done anything, how could you possibly be tired?" asked Anna with only mild incredulity. Emma was no longer the ball of energy she had been as a child. Neither their parents constant absence, nor their constant harping on Emma about her studies, helped matters.

Emma grunted noncommittally. They fell silent for several minutes, Anna's sipping the only sound breaking the silence.

"I guess those investments aren't going that well," Anna eventually said.

"You noticed it too?"

"Of course I noticed the whiskey. I'm the smarter twin, after all."

"Pfft, you wish," Emma returned, mouth curling into a grin. "I still kick your ass in chess."

Anna puffed her cheeks out unhappily but didn't argue the point. It was true that Emma's experience on the football pitch helped her dramatically in games like chess. Resolutely, neither of Sinclair had read the solutions manual. It was a fun intellectual challenge that way, and helped them bond when they first moved to Mitakihara.

"Don't forget that one time I flanked you with my knights," Anna countered. "I may not win all that often, but you have to admit that I destroyed you that time."

"Sure, sure," said Emma with a negligent waive of her hand. "You're also the one who understands and gets excited by logistics, so I guess we even out."

Anna wrinkled her nose. "Bad day of classes?" she asked. "You seem down."

"Oh you have no idea," groaned Emma. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't gone down the Interstellar Specialization. That way, I could just copy off you."

"Except that you find manufacturing floors nauseatingly dull," said Anna with a small grin. "And you'd be caught in a heartbeat."

"I can lie better than that!" argued Emma with as much indignation as she could muster. "Dad still doesn't know about the thing with the football!"

"Oh bloody hell, don't make me remember that," groaned Anna, covering her face with her hands. "Dammit Emma..."

"Oh shut up. No harm done, so it's water under the bridge, right?" dismissed Emma, curling into a napping ball. "Urgh. When did sensei want that assignment done for Mandatory? Oh good, it's not until tomorrow."

"Naptime, again?" asked Anna exasperatedly. "Emma, come on, let's go out and do something tonight!"

"Like what?" asked Emma with a raised eyebrow. "We have almost completely opposite interests!"

"Well, let's go to that cafe again," suggested Anna. "We both like it, and it's not that far away from the magical girl patrols. If we're lucky, we might get to see a demon fight!"

Emma considered. It was true that demon fights were pretty exciting to watch, despite the fact that you couldn't really see anything. It was really the whole "lookit the magical girls" aspect that was interesting. The occasional explosion that splashed against the edges of the miasma was neat too. It was a bit risky, but nobody had yelled at them yet.

"...I guess," she said, after a moment. "We haven't gone searching for one of those in a while, have we? I kinda miss it."

"Come on then," said Anna with a grin. She drained her cup and put it in the autosink, before hopping over and pulling her sister to her feet. "Let's eat early so we can get a good chance of seeing the action."

"Fine, fine," said Emma, brushing off Anna's hand and straightening her clothing. "I was just getting comfy too..."

* * *

"What've you been thinking about, for your plans?" asked Anna. The two of them had decided to walk to the cafe. It wasn't the longest walk, only about fifteen or twenty minutes, and they could always catch a ride back.

"You mean for, like, an internship or something?" asked Emma.

"Yeah," said Anna. "Ayumi and I are taking a look around for mentors."

"Mm, I haven't done any of that yet," said Emma.

"Eh? But if you don't do it soon-!"

"Yeah, yeah, all the good ones will be taken, whatever," said Emma, rolling her eyes. "It's not like I care, Anna."

Anna frowned. "But you'll be even more bored if you get a crap place to work, Emma."

Emma sighed. "I'll be bored either way, Anna," she said. "You don't actually think I'll ever be happy doing this?"

"No," sighed Anna. "I just wish Mum and Dad would just let you do your thing."

Emma snorted. "As if that'll ever happen."

"Well, maybe if you keep at it, they'll give up when you turn sixteen?"

"At that point, I may as well just finish my degree," said Emma. "I'd be too out of shape by then."

"Couldn't you do minor leagues, at least?"

"Anna."

"Yeah, yeah, I know…."

They walked silently for a few minutes.

"Say, seen anyone in class that you find interesting?" asked Anna.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Any boys or girls you find interesting?"

"Eh?! What's with this sudden change of topic? And for your information, I like boys!"

"Well we're about the right age…."

"Yeah, but it's not like we have the time!"

"Oh psh, that's just because you keep sleeping," said Anna, rolling her eyes. "I have plenty of free time for personal pursuits."

"I do not sleep that much!"

"Yes, you do."

"No I don't!"

"Yes you do~!"

"Anna!"

* * *

The cafe in question was called "The Standard Affair". The owner was apparently a fan of irony, since restaurants were no longer "standard affairs" in an age of synthesized food. Still, synthfood could get boring after awhile, so restaurants were still popular. Human artistry leant something intangible to a meal, after all.

"But back on the subject of boys," asked Anna between bites of her sandwich. "What d'you think about Iti-san?"

"Isn't he the guy who sits in the third row of our System Processes class?" asked Emma. "Hmm… I mean, I guess he's kinda cute?"

"You actually know who I'm talking about?" asked Anna incredulously. "Holy crap, my sister the jock noticed a boy?"

"Hey, I notice boys just fine, thank you!"

"And you've had... how many boyfriends?"

"Just as many as you. Which is none."

"That's not relevant, the point is that you're completely oblivious."

"Bah."

Anna giggled. "So, you say Iti's kinda cute do you?"

Emma blushed and looked away. "Yeah, and?"

"And go on! What's it about him you like?"

"I dunno," said Emma, taking a drink. "I just- it's just a- a- gah!"

"I'm just teasing!" laughed Anna. "Don't get so flustered!"

"Well since you're so casual about it, what about you?" asked Emma, hiding behind her drink as the door of the cafe opened with a small chime. "You brought him up."

"M-me? Uh, well, I uh… hm." Emma and Anna both glanced over at the group of girls who had entered, overhearing their conversation and not quite believing their ears.

"Really?" one of the girls, who had blonde hair pulled into a series of curls, was saying. "Didn't she just get promoted though?"

"Yeah, apparently she got a little uppity with Colonel Silva," said another, brown hair cut straight with pink highlights. "Bam, immediately reassigned."

"But, she's the company CO!" said another girl, her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. "Colonel Silva can't just reassign her to 3rd Battalion!"

Anna quickly turned back to Emma in her chair. "Magical girls," she mouthed to Emma in shock. Emma nodded back, catching sight of the fingernail markings and rings. Seeing one was rare. Seeing five, in the same place, was unprecedented

"Should we go talk to them?" asked Anna wordlessly, tilting her head in the direction of the group.

Emma shrugged. "Couldn't hurt," she gestured back. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"We be annoying and holyshitthey'recomingthisway." Emma blinked and turned in the direction of Anna's suddenly pale gaze.

"Hi there!" chirped one of the girls, her hair a shade of blue that shimmered as she approached with a skip and a wave. "So, we were wondering if we could sit with you? The cafe's kinda empty and we've started rehashing old topics, so..."

"Er, s-sure," stuttered Anna. "Um, here, let me-"

"No no, we've go this," said the magical girl, waving away Anna's attempt to help put together some tables. "Heyhey, Kanae-chan! Help me out will you?"

"Do it yerself, Mimori!" a girl with long, reddish brown hair tied up in a bun called back, before returning to her conversation with Blonde Curls.

"Eh, what can you do?" said Mimori with a shrug as she pulled two tables over from the middle of the room. "So, Anna and Emma Sinclair, as you probably know from your nomenclators, I'm Nakagawa Mimori." The girl bowed with a flourish, spreading her arms wide in a facsimile of a ringmaster welcoming someone to the show. She then popped back up with a skip and a hop. "So you're twins then? Which one of you is older?"

"Me," Emma said, raising a hand redundantly. "By, uh.. two minutes, I think?"

"That's what it says on our birth certificates," said Anna, pulling them up on her implants to confirm. "But it's alright, seeing as I'm the smarter twin."

"Meh," replied Emma, crossing her arms with a roll of her eyes. "You just plan more than I do, it's nothing that special."

"What's this about plans?" asked Blonde Curls. Her name was Sarah Johansen, and was coming over with a glass of something fizzy and alcoholic. "Mimori, you're not up to something again are you?"

"Hey, it wasn't me, it was Anna-san!" said Mimori with a pout.

"Wait, what-"

"Ah, well in that case I'm confident it won't get anyone scarred for life," said Sarah, extending a hand towards Anna. "Good evening. I hope Mimori hasn't been too... eccentric yet."

"Oh, no, it's fine," said Anna with a blink, shaking Sarah's hand in bewilderment. "But I-"

"Oh, twins!" said Sarah, either ignoring or not hearing Anna's protests and turning to Emma. "You're not very common these days, are you?"

Emma nodded, a little embarrassed at the sudden attention. "Ah, well, I could say the same for you," she said, hiding behind her beverage. "There's not really that many magical girls around our part of town."

"Really? I'd have thought that the tourism alone would have made us more visible in Mitakihara. But then again, I'm a tourist myself."

"Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of magical girls around the starport or something," said Emma. "But, we're kinda closer to mid-town rather than the center of the city, so the only girls you'd meet are locals, you know?"

"Although, there was a girl in our class who got… contracted," said Anna, blinking strangely. "Oh. Imn- Ow!"

"What'd you do?" asked Emma concernedly as Anna suddenly winced and put a hand to her face.

"I got an eyelash in my eye, sorry," said Anna, rubbing at her eye.

"Are you okay, do you need any help?" asked Emma.

"No, no, I've got it," said Anna, biting her lip. "Uh, I'll be right back."

Anna hurried off, rubbing at her eyes as the girl with pink highlights came up. Her name was Mei, and with her were Heather and Kanae. All three of them were bearing trays of food. "Behold," said Mei. "I come bearing foodstuffs."

"What's with her?" asked Heather, nodding at the Anna's retreating form.

"Got an eyelash in her eye, apparently," said Emma, watching Anna push her way into the bathroom. Was that- was Anna crying?

"Well, she'll be alright," said Sarah, pulling Emma's attention back to the table. "We'll go check on her in a few minutes."

"So what are your plans for the evening?" said Emma, speaking over Mimori cheering and Kanae bopping her on the head.

"Well, there was Mimori's plan of getting drunk, then going off on a demon hunt," said Sarah pulling up a chair next to Emma and sitting down. "But we vetoed that," She wore a light yellow jacket over her green t-shirt. With a shrug and a sip of her drink, she continued: "But, you know, I'm sure we'll find something to do. And we found two new faces, so that helps."

Emma considered this as she bit into her sandwich again. "Why us?" she asked, after chewing and swallowing. "I mean, there's nothing special about me and my sister."

Sarah smiled around her drink as she took another sip. "You'd be surprised," she said. "You can find the most interesting people just talking to someone at random. Besides, as we've said, twins aren't all that common these days, are they?"

"That's true, I guess," said Emma. The conversation drifted banally, centering around Emma and Mitakihara. Emma answered as best she could, but Anna would know better than she did.

Anna eventually returned and was immediately snatched up by Mimori, who struck up a conversation with her about anti-grav motorbikes. Emma noticed Anna's eyes were red, as if she really had been crying. She had said something about eyelashes though….

"Well," Emma said, putting aside her concerns. "Me and Anna were going to go sightseeing after dinner. Do you all want to come with?"

"Oh? I thought you'd have seen all the views already," said Sarah as she considered her pickle. She looked up at Emma, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Unless there's something particularly interesting about this view?"

"Well, it happens to be right alongside a patrol route" said Emma. "We came upon it be accident, and no-one else knows, so don't tell anyone."

"That sounds like fun, actually!" said Mimori, tossing a chip into the air and catching it in her mouth with a crunch. "Whaddya think, Mei?"

"Eh, can't be that exciting if civvies can find it and not get caught in the miasma," Mei replied "Still, maybe a movie afterwards?"

"Says here the patrol is scheduled to go past at 1730, so there should be plenty of time for something like that," said Heather. Her eyes unfocused as she consulted the listings for the nearest theater. "Ooh, there's a new documentary out!"

"Heather, only you like documentaries," said Mei, rolling her eyes. "I guess we're all in agreement. Anna-san, Emma-san, I hope you two don't mind?"

"Hm? Oh, not at all," said Anna. "I'll, uh, I just need to pay the bill for myself and Emma."

"We'll meet you outside then?" asked Emma, standing up. "Flag down a transport and all that?"

Anna nodded. "Sure."


	2. Sunset is Sunrise

The general idea, most of the time, is to try and catch miasmas before they become an actual problem. Usually this means that they're caught pretty early, though is the occasional time when things go slightly awry. Still, the vast majority of the time, civilians have little to fear, even if they get caught in the miasma.

_-Lieutenant Colonel Mina Mertens, 42n_ _d Regiment,_ _11th Magical Division, 2nd Army Group of the Tigris_

* * *

It is generally accepted as best practice for all recruiters to try and talk their recruit through the first few days of contracting. This has varying degrees of success, though it is worth noting that some of the most famous mages in history succeeded without mentorship.

_-Major Tiffany Edwards, C Company, 11th Regiment, 3rd Magical Division, 1st Army Group of the Mekong_

* * *

Getting to the Sinclairs' view point required a bus pod to transport all seven people. Emma and Anna had somehow gotten separated over the course of the trip. Anna became the focus of Mimori and Heather, the three of them discussing something intensely nerdy. Emma was talking to Sarah on a variety of topics, mostly stories from Sarah about her deployments. Mei and Kanae were off to the side, watching the view.

Out of the corner of her eye, Emma watched her sister carefully. The thing with the eyelash was worrying her. Anna had been gone a long time to the bathroom, and ever since the magical girls had decided to hang out with them for the evening, she had seemed to get more… sad wasn't even the proper word. She just seemed… down. It wasn't that obvious to an outsider, but the fact that Anna hadn't gone all glittery-eyed when the conversation had turned to military supply chains was rather telling.

"So, Sarah, I take it you're all on leave," said Emma. She'd have to ask Anna about it when they got to the view point, but for now she needed to be polite. "You'd be at the front otherwise, right?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes, this is the third combat tour for most of us," she confirmed. "Except for Mei, she's been around for a couple more years."

"So I guess you've all fought together for awhile then."

"Oh, no," said Sarah with a smile. "You're nomenclator probably says we're all from the 7th Ganges Magical Division, right?"

"Yeah," answered Emma, nodding.

"You see, Divisions are broken into Companies, which are then broken into Platoons," Sarah explained. "I'm from B Company, Mimori and Kanae are both from C, Mei is in A Company, and Heather is in D. We're all very busy, so talking to people outside your company is uncommon."

"Oh," said Emma. "I, uh, I guess I should have looked that up."

Sarah smiled but dismissed that with an airy wave. "You didn't know you didn't know. The only thing you can do is try and see what happens, right?"

Emma nodded. "So, um, how did you all meet, if you're not from the same unit?"

"Mei felt like visiting Earth and asked around until she got a decently sized group going," said Sarah. "From there, it was just deciding a destination, and what better place to visit than the hometown of the Mitakihara Four?"

Emma nodded. "I can see what you mean, but London's definitely better."

"You've been there before?"

"I was born there," said Emma, gazing up the tower they needed to climb to the top of. It was made to utilitarian standard, faced with polyglas broken only by the occasional wide balcony. It was just like the ones Emma had grown up around as a child in London, gazing in wonderment at something so incredibly tall. "I...I miss it a lot."

Sarah nodded, a wistful smile on her face as they waited for the elevator to reach ground level. "I was born in New Taipei, you know. It was the single largest city on Hulei-5. We had the best fried chicken there. It was always served in a spicy, tangy sauce we made out of the region's peppers. The architecture wasn't like here, since we didn't need to conserve space as much, so we had all sorts of shapes and colors."

"Sounds cool," said Emma, grinning appreciatively. "Do you visit often?"

"Hulei-5... Hulei-5 was razed to the ground a few years back," said Sarah, face falling. "I made my contract during the attack. The military was pulling out to reinforce Optatum, and Hulei-5 was deemed nonessential. I got pulled out by a Magical Division only a few minutes before an antimatter device incinerated New Taipei."

"That's terrible!" said Emma, horrified. "I'm- bloody hell, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

"Don't worry about it," sighed Sarah, giving Emma a reassuring smile. "I've had three years to get over it, and my family is as supportive as they can be. As far as contracts go, I'm lucky. My wish meant something, and my family is behind me all the way."

"Do… do most girls get bad wishes?"

"No, no, it's not like that," said Sarah. "It's just that not all incubators have a good understanding of human nature. I'd tell you more but, you know, secrets."

"Ah," said Emma. She and Sarah fell silent for the remainder of the trip to the top floor, both wrapped up in their own thoughts. Sensing the mood, the others gave them their space and talked amongst themselves.

It seemed that becoming a magical girl couldn't be much worse than joining the military. At least, it seemed that way to Emma. There was fighting, there was death, and the statistics were probably terrible. But the statistics for a freshly trained Private in the Army were easy to find, and the attrition rate wasn't exactly good, anyway. Depending on how you were deployed, 1 in 3 soldiers died in a given offensive on the front lines of the Contact War. The sheer weight of firepower a squid offensive could leverage was only ever barely held back by human forces, and they paid for that with lives.

Sure, technically speaking, one hundred years from now, she'd have lived a "full life", but what exactly would that entail? Analyzing supply chains? That thought made Emma want to vomit. Football? She was certainly out of shape by now, and she wasn't sure how much of her old skill she retained. There were some things implants couldn't do, and civilian level ones didn't let you increase your speed and strength effortlessly like military ones could. She would need to work back to her previous level, and by then she'd be behind...

Emma grunted in annoyance and turned back from the polyglas wall that surrounded the elevator.

"What're you guys talking about?" asked Emma, moving to stand beside Mimori.

"Ah, we were just discussing about the differences between Samsara and Earth," answered Heather. "Caledonia and Mitakihara City, specifically."

"Caledonia's the capital of Samsara, right?" asked Emma.

"That's right," said Heather as the elevator doors opened with a ding on the 800th floor. "As an example, most of the buildings aren't more than 300 stories tall."

"Really? I'd have thought a planet like Samsara..?"

"Eh, the population's only something like three-and-a-half billion," answered Heather, as they stepped onto the roof. The sun was about an hour from setting, its yellowing light casting the greenspace and benches on the roof into shades of orange. "So if you're following standard Governance building philosophy, you can pack most of that into cities with three hundred story apartment complexes, right?"

Emma thought about it for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, because the packing density of a building's related to demand. Since demand isn't that high you can fit the same number into more buildings with less stories or vice versa."

"See, I told you that Logistics would be useful eventually," said Anna dryly. "And you said that you'd never get to apply it until you were fifty."

Emma almost stopped in alarm to ask what was wrong. Anna almost never spoke in that tone. Before she could, though: "You don't seem the type to go into something like logistics," said Heather.

"I'm not," said Emma shortly, before turning for Anna. Yet again, though:

"Well then why are you?" asked Heather,

"My parents disapproved of football as a career," said Emma.

"Oh. That's it?"

"Does there need to be anything else?"

"Well, usually there's some other factor," said Heather. "I mean, Mimori was supposed to go into international affairs, I think, before she got contracted."

"My options were either fight with my parents every single day or give up," said Emma flatly. "They're persistent and convinced they're right. What am I supposed to do?"

"I… well, I guess there's not much."

"Exactly," said Emma perfunctorily before she hurried after Anna, quickly catching up. "Anna, are you alright?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm fine," said Anna with a sigh and a nod. A forced smile appeared on her face. "This pretty cool, isn't it? Who figured we'd get to meet five magical girls at once?"

"It's a little surreal," agreed Emma, turning to lean her head on her hands. The northeast corner of the building overlooked a street of Governance-affiliated offices. Most of them appeared to be getting ready to end the day, with a steadily increasing rate of people. "But, are you sure you're alright? It looked like you were crying earlier."

"I'm fine, really," said Anna. "It's just, it looks like you'll be leaving soon."

Emma turned to look at her sister and blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"You _a_ _re_ thinking about it, right? Joining the military?"

"In a hundred years or so, sure, but it's not like I can do that right now."

Anna returned the look with a steady gaze. She seemed resigned. "Everyone who knows you knows that you're not happy here."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Magical girls showing up out of nowhere, hanging out with the two of us and acting like they're no different from the other girls at school? Come on, Emma, you're smarter than this. You can see where this is going."

Emma wrinkled her brow and leaned back, looking at her sister with incredulity. "You're not suggesting..."

"I am."

"But why?"

"Does anyone ever know?" asked Anna with a shrug, looking back out at the office building, where the flow of people had gathered to its maximum.

Emma looked away from the street towards the cluster of magical girls to their right. Mimori was now arguing with Heather about something, with the ponytailed girl returning fire from a textbook she was looking up. She didn't see anything there that suggested that anything was going on. It was just a group of friends, hanging out. Surely there would be more signs, if Anna was right.

"I'm not sure you're correct," said Emma, turning back to her sister. "I think you're thinking too much about it."

"But wouldn't it be a perfect opportunity?" asked Anna, gesturing at the magical girls. "A big show to convince you of the validity of your choice, followed by a celebration with some girls you're already friends with?"

"You're being way too suspicious about this," said Emma resolutely, shaking her head. This was what she'd gotten worried over? Her sister overthinking things? "Let's just enjoy the moment. You're right, I'd join the military earlier if I could, and if it's through a contract, then at least I'll get added benefits. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, after all."

"Very wise, Emma," said a voice in both their heads, causing both Sinclairs to jump. "You too, Anna, although I hope I can persuade you to making a contract this evening."

A furry white creature jumped up onto the railing. A red ring on its back could be seen briefly, before it turned to face them. A long tail and ears, the latter encircled by golden rings, trailed behind it as red eyes looked up at the two sisters.

Anna blinked at the Incubator, then turned to Emma. With a sigh and a shake of her head, she folded her arms.

"This is where I say 'I told you so'."

"Now don't be rude, Anna" chided the Incubator, dipping its head slightly. "It's not polite to hold things like this over your sibling's head."

Emma stared in shock at what had manifested in front of her.

"You... you're real," she said, reaching out with one hand and gently poking the Incubator in the cheek.

"Yes, I'm very real," the Incubator replied, nuzzling the finger gently in response. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you why I'm here."

"No, I... I gathered."

"Well then, do either of you have a wish?" asked the Incubator, tilting its head inquiringly. "You of course know that I can grant most anything."

"I-I don't, I mean I never thought that-," stuttered Emma, mind whirling as she tried to comprehend just what was happening. Anna had been right? How could she have known? And for that matter, she had hardly seemed surprised.

"Anna, how long did you-?"

"Didn't I say? I've seen this coming from a long ways away," sighed Anna, rubbing at her eyes.

"Here," said Sarah, appearing at Anna's shoulder with a handkerchief, causing the girl to start. "Sorry, combat training. It's habitual by now."

"It's alright," said Anna, dabbing at her eyes. "Ugh… I won't say anything to try and persuade you, Emma. Do what you think is right."

"Hey now, I'm not going to do something that'll make you cry like this," said Emma. "You get some sort of say in this. Besides, you can see it too, why don't you make a contract?"

"Heh, that's a really good question," said Anna. "I guess I just don't think my wish is going to be as important as yours, that's all."

"What do you mean 'not as important'?"

"Just, don't worry about it," said Anna sharply. She sighed, pulling herself together and sniffling. "I… I'm sure the Incubator will tell you, it's not a choice to be made with the influence of others."

"This is true," said the Incubator. "We, that is, we Incubators, try to keep outside biases from influencing contractee decisions."

"See?"

"I- sure. Maybe. I- I don't know," said Emma, still reeling. "What- what would I even wish for?"

"That's not something we can really help you on," said Sarah, pulling Anna behind her and withdrawing. "We'll give you some space to think, alright? Make sure your wish is a good one."

"Tell me what your wish is, if you contract," added Anna. "Alright?"

Emma nodded. "A-alright," she said, as Sarah and Anna walked back to the others. Anna was wiping her eyes, muttering something about waiting being the worst part.

"It's not an easy decision," said the Incubator. giving Emma a look that seemed to express centuries of understanding. "I've contracted many girls in my time on Earth, and very few were happy to make a spontaneous wish and jump into the contract."

"How long have you been here?" asked Emma, avoiding the topic.

The Incubator seemed to sigh, but humored Emma's question. "I have been here ever since the girls you know as the Mitakihara Four contracted. Indeed, I was in charge of their contracts."

"Wait, so you're-?"

"Yes, I am called Kyuubey," said the Incubator. "Though my kind would prefer not to take these names, it appears that our initial attempts to curry favor have stuck."

"Curry favor?"

"Is this really the time?" asked Kyuubey. "Ms. Sinclair, while I appreciate your interest, you really ought to decide whether or not you will contract."

"Why me?" asked Emma. She glanced to her sister as the latter talked quietly with the magical girls. "She's being brave about it, but it's pretty obvious that Anna would rather I stay here than go. I don't want to make her cry."

"That is a question that is difficult to answer," said Kyuubey, shifting on the railing restlessly. "The best I can say is that your potential is tied to your discontent with life. You find it all terribly dull, don't you?"

"That's true," said Emma, looking up at the late evening sky. Streaks of cloud, stained magenta, purple, orange, and yellow, sheeted the sky in rolling waves. Beyond was the upper atmosphere, then the vacuum of space. And from there, anywhere in the galaxy could eventually be reached with an FTL drive. There was so much potential. Anything out there had to be better than here.

"Your parents are also absent, and not precisely on good terms with you," continued Kyuubey. "You have one friend in Mitakihara, and both she and your sister are all expecting you to leave when you are of age, anyway. What ties do you have?"

"Expecting is not the same as accepting," said Emma, frowning and looking back to Anna. "These two years haven't been all that kind. Back in London, we at least had our own ways of life. Now, though, our lives are the same. You can't expect me to accept that Anna will be alright on her own."

"Ah, you misunderstand how the system works, these days," said Kyuubey with a shake of its head. "It's true that back when the Mahou Shoujo Youkai was not in existence, your concerns would be valid, and I perhaps would have left you to your lives. But now, magical girls take care of their own, and that extends to family members. Aside from the more public benefits, the MSY makes sure that they get the support they need to cope. Rest assured that Anna will not be abandoned when you leave."

"I.. alright." Emma took a deep breath, trusting Kyuubey to his word. She hadn't really done any research, and there was no time to do so now. But Sarah and Mei, girls like them… she trusted them, despite the little time she'd had to get to know them. The MSY, it was something like a huge magical girl union, wasn't it? And unions, from what she'd learned about history, usually didn't screw over their members. "Alright. I'll make a contract."

"Well then, Emma Sinclair," said Kyuubey, the sunlight striking him from the side and casting one eye into shadow. Both eyes glowed in the darkening light, fixing Emma in their gaze. "With what wish will your soul gem shine?"

Emma closed her eyes. She hadn't been sure what she wanted. She certainly didn't know what she wanted now. But maybe it wasn't about what she wanted, but what she could be? After all, making a contract and becoming a magical girl was not something you could take back. If you made a contract, then you had to follow through. Especially in war, where anything less than that would get you killed. Yes, that was something that made sense to her, something that she could hold close to her heart and carry forward for the rest of her life.

Emma opened her eyes, then said the most important words she would every say.

"I wish that I would make the best out of my life. I wish to not waste this opportunity."

Kyuubey nodded, its ears stretching forward.

"Wish granted," he pronounced, a light gathering in the center of Emma's chest, growing in intensity and kicking up a sudden wind. "Your soul has successfully reduced entropy."

There was a blinding pain that made Emma gasp. Along every nerve ending, every capillary, every muscle fiber, bright fire seemed to erupt, burning her from the inside out with the all consuming and irreducible force of a hurricane, ripping up and out from the depths of her body even as it fell into dust and ash and was swept aside...

And then suddenly, it was over, and Emma was whole and unhurt, standing exactly where she had been before, her soul gem glowing before her eyes.

"Take it," ordered Kyuubey, eyes closed in something almost like benediction. "It is your destiny."

With trembling fingers, Emma reached out and grasped the shining blue gem, wrapped in gold filigree and topped with a small, fluted knob. Her soul gem was warm to the touch, pulsating gently with her heartbeat. Idly, Emma noted that the patrol was passing by, the bright colors flashing in the gathering darkness.

She'd be joining them soon. Maybe not tonight, but chances were they'd want her to try a patrol before she left, to make sure she wasn't completely clueless at training.

Jeez, training. The war. Emma took a deep breath to calm herself as her mind whirled at the implications of what she'd just done.

"Hey, Emma, you alright?" asked Heather, stepping up behind her. "That was one hell of a wish, by the- whoa now, easy, easy…"

Emma's knees had abruptly decided to stop working. "Ah, sorry, sorry," she said sheepishly, getting her feet underneath her quickly. "I guess the weight of what just happened hit me all at once. Thanks for the save."

"Don't mention it," said Heather, letting her go. "Anyway, like I said, that was one hell of a wish. It's supposed to be a private thing, but, you know, magical ears."

"Yeah, yeah, that was really well done!" said Mimori, bounding over energetically. "Man, if only I coulda pulled that off when I contracted. You were super cool about it too, no stuttering or nothing!"

"Congratulations," said Kanae simply, nodding as she came over. "Well, hopefully."

"Don't be a downer, Kanae," said Mei, rolling her eyes. "It's true that some girls regret contracting, but you don't seem like one of them. Welcome to the fold, as it were, Emma. If you want, you can get a mentor, usually the girl who witnesses your wish. Technically speaking, that's all of us here, but Mimori's not really the mentoring type-,"

"Nope!" chirped Mimori.

"-Heather and Kanae are both in the Shock Battalions and aren't allowed for a few more deployments-,"

Heather and Kanae both shrugged. It was what it was, apparently.

"-and I've already got a girl I'm mentoring," finished Mei. "That leaves Sarah."

"Did someone call?" said the curly haired mage. Stepping forward, she curtsied with the edges of her jacket. "Emma Sinclair, if you'll have me, I would humbly request to be your mentor."

"Sure, but, aren't I supposed to ask you?" said Emma weakly. "I mean…."

"Well, technically speaking, yes," said Mei. "But screw ceremony. We're all happy with the arrangement, right? Right. Here, check it out."

A view window opened in Emma's field of vision, several lines of text upon it. Evidently, judging from the small tag along the side, it had been forwarded from Mei's implants.

Emma Sinclair (it said), Magical Girl, Second Lieutenant. Classification: unknown, Immediate Commanding Officer: Captain Mei Zhou, Primary Mentor (optional): First Lieutenant Sarah Johansen.

"Oh. Cool," said Emma, blinking away the window. "I.. I can do that now?"

"You mean share things mentally?" said Mei. "Yeah, it's a new feature. Comes with getting inducted into the military. But hey, we can get you caught up in a bit. Don't you have someone to talk to right now?"

Emma blinked, then started guiltily as she saw Anna standing off to the side, staring off at the horizon where the sun had set. Kyuubey had changed positions and was perched on her shoulder. They appeared to be having a conversation.

"Right," said Emma, nodding to the assembled girls. "Thanks for the help. Give us a moment, will you?"

"Absolutely," said Mei, shepherding all but Sarah away towards the elevator. "We'll meet you a floor down, alright?"

"Yeah," answered Emma. She turned to Sarah. "I guess you're my mentor now. What should I say?"

Sarah sighed and pulled out more handkerchiefs from her pocket. "You know Anna. You know her motivations and her desires. You'll need to stay strong, and hold your conviction close to you. Remember that she supported this decision, and that she will continue supporting you. She loves you very much, Emma."

"Y-yeah," said Emma, choking up slightly. The implications, the possibility of her death, leaving Anna behind… "I know." She took a deep breath. "T-thanks. I can take it from here."

"I believe in you, Emma" said Sarah, handing Emma the handkerchiefs. With an encouraging pat on the shoulder, Sarah left and called the elevator, joining the others a floor down.

Emma looked down at her hands, her soul gem having reformed into a ring while she wasn't paying attention. One fingernail had a blue vortex atop it, swirling inwards towards the center of the nail. With an effort, she stopped herself from tying the handkerchiefs into knots and made her way to Anna's side.

* * *

"Jeez, was I ever this slow when I first contracted?" asked Mimori over telepathy, sprawled out on a bench. "Get on with it, already, it's not that big a deal…."

"Give them their space," said Mei, in the same medium. "It's obvious they're close. Unusual for siblings."

"It depends," said Sarah, sitting demurely on a bench with her legs crossed and hands folded in her lap. "My relationship with my brother is perfectly friendly, for example."

"Yeah, and that one girl in C Company is happy that her family's cut ties with her for being a lesbian, so."

"She's an unusual case," countered Sarah. "In general, it's important to make sure each contractee's situation with their family is as good as it can get for them. Nobody needs that sort of thing hanging over their heads."

"Look, I'm just saying-," began Mimori, but:

"Oh, for the love of the Goddess, can we not talk about this?" thought Heather. "Let's just get Emma up to speed on the basics, then go watch that movie we were planning on. We can worry about metaphysical concepts later."

"She has a point," agreed Sarah, nodding in Heather's direction. "I can take care of it, and I'll ask for help if I'm not getting through, alright?"

The group nodded, falling silent. A moment later, the elevator dinged.

"How was it?" asked Sarah out loud. She glanced at Emma's hand, where the handkerchief were wrinkled and damp. "Many tears all around, I see."

"Just a little too much nostalgia," reassured Emma. "And some excessively morbid thinking on Anna's part."

"But we're ready to go to whatever you guys want do next," continued Anna. "Here, Sarah, your handkerchiefs."

"Thank you," said Sarah, folding them up neatly and placing them back in her various pockets. "We were just talking about our plans for the evening, actually. If you're up to it, how do you feel about getting some basic orientation business out of the way?"

"I'm alright with that," said Emma. "Anna, how about you?"

"Whatever you want is fine," said Anna. "I'll be off to the side, out of your way."

"Actually, why don't you stand with us," said Mei. "It'll be safer, I think."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes, it's usually…"

"In any case, let's get started," said Sarah briskly. "Ladies," she said to the girls behind them. "If you have any tips, don't be shy."

"Don't worry, we'll be sure to tell you if you're screwing it up," said Kanae deadpan.

Sarah restrained the urge to roll her eyes and turned back to Emma. "Anyway," said Sarah, turning her back to the laughter at Kanae's comment. "Why don't you transform first, so we can see how you're kitted out? It's as easy as thinking."

"So… like this?" asked Emma, holding out her hand. She hadn't even finished the question before blue light rippled out of her soul gem, whipping across her body like wind breaking over a rock. When it was over, Emma had exchanged her clothes for a robe-based outfit, the lower hem trimmed back to the knee. While the top of the robes remained like their traditional counterparts, albeit slimmed to be more form fitting and with holes that showed her shoulders, the skirt had been cut into three sections.

At the front and back, the skirt dropped straight down, like a sash, and ended in a triangular cut like the end of a men's dress tie. It was wider at the back than at the front. The sides wrapped around behind the sash-like parts, cut at an angle so that they swept up and left her legs free to move. The robes' base color was white and dyed crimson along the edges of the cuts and the top of the arms and shoulders. The sashes had more dye than the skirt and arms.

The outfit was supplemented by a cuirass and two quarter-skirts of armor, tied around Emma's waist. Flexing her hands, Emma found that she was also wearing gloves of fine, grippy leather. A moment later, she realized that she had boots that came up to her knees, made of the same material but with a heavy sole, and brass fittings for the laces. Finally, she felt a weight on her right ear, and reached up to feel her soul gem shaped into a long earring, with beads and a tassel of crimson trailing down and onto her shoulder.

"Very nice," said Sarah, looking Emma up and down. "I'm almost envious, you look like some sort of medieval assassin."

"Maybe from a sim or something," said Emma, twisting around to examine more of herself. "I kinda feel like a dork in this. At least your clothing's, you know, normal and stuff."

"Don't feel too bad, Mimori's got a sparkly deal with miscellaneous unnecessary ruffles," confided Sarah. "It's really quite ridiculous, but she gets very impressive illusionary powers, so I guess it evens out."

"Hey, it's not that bad!" protested Mimori.

"No, it really is," countered Kanae with a smile. The two immediately got into something of a shouting match, with Mei and Heather not-so-subtly egging them on.

"Does that happen a lot?" asked Emma.

"Apparently yes," said Sarah, raising an eyebrow at the two bickering girls before turning back to her charge. "Let's see what your main power is next."

"The same way as I transformed?"

"That's correct," said Sarah with a smile. "Very good thinking, Emma, now let's see what you can do."

Emma took a deep breath and held out her right hand. The idea flickered into her mind like the answer to a test question she'd studied for.

"Emma wants a big boom," she said with a grin, a football-sized sphere howling into place on her palm. The outer shell consisted of finely spun fabric of clouds, pressing against her palm angrily as they tried to escape the grasp of the swirling vortex in the center of the ball.

Instinctively, Emma lofted the ball high in the air, then leapt after it. As the ball reached the apex of its trajectory, Emma twisted in midair to face the wall. Keeping her eyes on the sphere, she now rotated backwards, pulling one leg up to get just enough air to stay level with the ball, then swinging her opposite leg up and over to send the sphere hurtling downwards into a cluster of bushes.

There was a brief rushing noise of air being sucked into a vacuum, followed by the longest fraction of a second of silence Emma had ever heard.

The concussive wave that blasted out right after didn't even make her flinch as she flipped herself back over and landed in a crouch on the ground, wide grin splitting her face.

"Hell yes!" she cheered, pumping a fist in the air as fragments of plant matter rained down. "And it's a scissors kick from Emma Sinclair for the win!"

"A little warning would be nice!" said Heather sharply, everyone having ducked under a barrier generated by Mei. The impact of the vortex sphere had been much closer to them than it had been to Emma and Sarah.

"And perhaps a little forethought, hm?" said Sarah with a raised eyebrow as she reappeared at Emma's shoulder. "You've completely destroyed a perfectly good set of bushes, you know."

"Ah, sorry," said Emma sheepishly. Her football of boom had completely torn apart the cluster of bushes she'd kicked it into, cratering out the fixture that held soil and plant in place. Torn, in this case, was quite literal, as even a cursory examination of what remained showed deep gouges and rips from what was apparently wind rushing fast enough to stop caring about what was in its way.

"Still, I do have to admit, that was quite impressive," conceded Sarah after a moment, breaking into a smile as she shook her head. "You're going to be a force on the battlefield, that's for sure, and you've got a knack for aerial maneuver that'll prove useful."

"Aerial maneuver?" asked Emma. "Was that what that was? I just figured becoming a magical girl gave you better fine motor skills."

"No, a lot of it is your magic helping you along," explained Sarah. "A lot of it is instinctual, but if you consciously think about it, it's possible to get from the roof to the ground in about twenty seconds. Falling with style, as it were."

Emma looked out the polyglas windows, splattered now with fragments of plant and earth. That was really possible now? Maybe if she jumped to there, then there, and then-

"Don't even think about it, you'll get the training for it later," said Sarah, calling Emma's attention back to her. "For now, stick to trying to keep up with the others during a patrol, and you'll be doing well. Let's see what weapons you have."

"And tell us before you try and use them!" said Mei, before Emma could summon her primary weapon. "If I need to defend myself again, I'd rather be prepared for it."

"I, oh, sorry. Sure thing," said Emma with a nod. "Alright, here goes then." She flicked a hand out and summoned a halberd with a thought, grinning at the seven foot long, polished wooden shaft and the surprisingly small and light ax head at the end. This was combined with a long metal point at the end of the shaft, allowing her to spear as well as hack, and a long, gently curved spike on the reverse of the ax head. "Hehe, awesome!"

"Careful now," said Sarah as Emma swung it around in an arc, twisted and tossed it upwards in a high loop, caught it, and spun it back down to the ground, where she flipped it upright and planted it point upwards. "Don't let it go to your head. You should know the basics of fighting with it, but don't get careless. It's still a weapon, not a toy."

"I know, I know," said Emma, still looking at her halberd with an admiring gaze. "But man, does it feel good to use it."

"Jeez, you're such a jock," huffed Anna. She came over to examine her sister's weaponry. "You were just like this when we were younger, going on and on about the new football strategy you were planning."

"Ah, you played football as a child?" asked Sarah. "Were you planning on pursuing that as a goal?"

"I was, until we moved to Mitakihara," said Emma with a nod. "I've been keeping up with the literature though, and Anna and I play unguided chess as much as we can."

"Interesting," said Sarah, making a note for herself. "Well, in any case, there's nothing more for us to do here," said Sarah, dismissing her transformation. "Sparring is going to damage this place more than you already have."

"Alright then." Emma canceled her transformation as well, the halberd dissolving into bright motes of light as her soul gem reappeared on her finger. "Should I go home and tell my parents? They'll be home soon."

"It's probably best to do that sooner rather than later," said Sarah with a nod and a commiserating smile. "We'll drop the others off where we're staying and then go to your home."

Emma sighed. "Yeah. Let's get this over with."


	3. Enterprising Young Ladies

_To call it a demon_ _"hunt"_ _is, in my opinion, a little melodramatic. When we go out and destroy demons, it_ _'_ _s a clinical process that_ _'_ _s designed to minimize casualties while destroying as much as we can as quickly as possible. It_ _'_ _s more a harvest than anything else._

_-Colonel Shizuki Nakano, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Regiment, 3rd Magical Division of the Euphrates_

* * *

_Oh man, my first demon hunt. That was an experience. In boredom. I mean, really, I was completely underwhelmed by it. I guess as a kid, I was thinking_ _"_ _oh hey, this_ _'_ _ll be something cool_ _"_ _, but all the older girls just sort of established a perimeter and pounded the demons into submission. Such a drag._

_-1st Lieutenant Ayanna Desai, A Company, 9th Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Magical Division of the Nile_

* * *

The talk went about as well as expected. Which was to say, extremely poorly. As it turned out, Emma's parents did, in fact, care about the fact that Emma had contracted, though for the life of her Emma couldn't figure out why. According to Sarah, the shouting and arguing were normal, and doubtless she had evidence from other girls that corroborated this, but that didn't erase the bitter taste in Emma's mouth.

It would help, she felt, if she got to punch something sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, the next demon hunt she had signed up for was not scheduled for until later that week, which was just as well, as she found herself suddenly besieged with medical appointments, a host of things-to-remember, and some time picking up new gear. The TacComp, installed the day after she'd contracted and coming fully online just a day ago, had been a particularly intriguing development, and she'd spent several hours with it on the roof avoiding her parents. They had now decided to stay at home from work for whatever ungodly reason. She had her brand new SW 155 Officer's Sidearm stored in her desk with her grief cubes and the accompanying robot, which she and Anna both found rather cute.

As it turned out, there was supposed to be some sort of social event before the demon hunt. According to the invite, it was supposed to be an informal gathering, but Emma thought it prudent to double check with Sarah before going.

"No, it's really not necessary to go to any lengths for this," Sarah had reassured her over vidcall. "It's just a sort of magical girl excursion out into Mitakihara. Dress in something comfortable and don't be intimidated by anyone. Nobody's going to bully you or anything."

"Shouldn't I try to make a good impression though?" asked Emma.

"You'll be able to do that well enough by being calm and relaxed when you're there," said Sarah with a smile. "Really, Emma, don't worry about this so much. Take a deep breath before you walk through the doors and you'll be fine. None of us from the 8th Ganges bit when you met us, right?"

"Ah, that's true," Emma had said sheepishly. "Magical girls aren't really that different from us normal girls, right?"

"You're magical too now," Sarah had said with a giggle. "But just by saying that you've proved your own point."

And that was how Emma ended up arriving at the sixtieth floor of a commerce tower in jeans, a t-shirt, and a comfortable old hoody. Taking a deep breath, Emma recalled Sarah's advice and pushed aside her nerves as best as possible before stepping out of her transit pod and onto the platform.

The arrival alcove that she had landed at was like any other opening to a specific, highly exclusive establishment. Polyglass panels formed floor to ceiling windows and doors, with the building itself riding almost flush with the transit tube. More notable, however, was the overall size of the alcove, being sized only half as large as the usual reception area, if that. It demonstrated an establishment that plainly did not need a large space to do its business.

It was, however, the interior that really struck Emma. It was a multicultural fusion place named something unpronounceably Icelandic. It translated to "unappealing", a name that did not really seem like a good idea to Emma. Even more oddly, the decorations were almost certainly based off of traditional Chinese aesthetics, which had her scratching her head in the doorway.

"Why would you do this?" she wondered out loud.

"It's apparently a symbolic gesture," said a voice behind Emma. She started and spun around, finding a Japanese girl standing behind her but gazing thoughtfully at the machined aluminum name plate. "Infopedia says it's supposed to represent the joining of the exotic west with the roots of the east."

"That's completely ridiculous," said Emma, folding her arms and looking back around to the gilded pillars and miscellaneous bronze lions. "Surely there's a better way than… this."

"Probably," said the girl, named Mina Hideaki, rank captain, and a mind controller from the Ganges Sector, with a shrug, before given Emma a skeptical look. "But are you or I interior designers?"

"Well, no."

"So I guess we shouldn't really judge. You're one of the new contractees?"

"Yeah," said Emma, putting her hands in her hoodie's pockets. "I, uh, guess you're supposed to be the Q&A Girl?"

"Got it in one," said Mina with a small smile. "You're early. I like that. Come on, let's get a few drinks from the bar while we wait for the others."

Emma kept her intoxication controls on while they waited, but she did find out that she was a fan of Manhattans. The bar was decorated similarly to the entry way, which was really starting to get very disconcerting. Mina didn't seem to be much of a conversationalist, which didn't help Emma feel less awkward with the situation, but thankfully the other girls arrived, seven in total, within the next fifteen minutes, all of them looking somewhat more carefully dressed than Emma but all plainly nervous.

"You know," thought Mina discretely to Emma. "You're very well put together for all this."

"I have a good mentor," replied Emma with a mental shrug. "She gave me some good advice."

"You'll have to tell me about her later, she seems like an interesting girl," said Mina with a raised eyebrow, before ordering everyone a drink.

"Oh, I'm alright without one," demurred Ayane Nakamura, a flier with deep brown, braided hair from Osaka and eyes to match.

"You don't need to turn your intoxication controls off," said Emma, taking a sip of her Manhattan. "These things are pretty tasty as is."

"Sorry, I just don't like the taste of alcohol," said Ayane with a sheepish smile. "It's a little awkward, but I'd really prefer a glass of water."

"You've had alcohol before then?" asked Emma curiously as the bartender set the glass of water down in front of Ayane.

"Well, only a little," said Ayane, taking a sip of her water. "My parents have some red wine on occasion, and I tried some once. It wasn't very good."

"Ah. My dad has a decanter of whiskey, but I never had the urge to try," said Emma. "Well, until now that is."

"Mm."

"What did you, ah, study before contracting?" asked Emma, searching for some topic of conversation. "Well, I guess, what's studying ornithology like? I mean, er-."

"It was a lot of fun," said Ayane, saving Emma from her increasingly awkward attempts to ask the same question. "I worked at the Species Diversity Preserve as an intern."

"Really? You must know a lot."

"Well, I wouldn't say that I'm particularly knowledgable," said Ayane, blushing a little and fiddling with the end of her braid. "The scientists there all had been working for years and years, but I did my best to keep up."

"Well, compared to them, no," said Emma as the others began to talk amongst themselves. Apparently, none of them thought they could be as awkward as she had been. "But, for our age group, you must really know what you're doing."

"I guess," said Ayane, looking away and flushing more deeply. "But ah, anyway, what about you? What did you study?"

"Oh, well, I guess I studied Logistics," said Emma with a shrug. "I didn't really like it though."

"But, if you didn't like Logistics, why did you study it?" asked Ayane, tilting her head to the side.

"Parents."

"Parents?"

"I am… not very happy with them at the moment," said Emma, before rapidly changing the topic. "What research did you do?"

That set Ayane off with a happy smile, detailing the research she'd been conducting and pausing only to order a meal. Emma was forced to scramble to keep up through Infopedia and her TacComp feeding her information directly. Emma barely understood what was happening, but she gathered that it was something about bird migration paths post Unification in comparison to pre-Unification data.

"So you just had to record which birds came through the Preserve during the year?" asked Emma. "Doesn't that seem, I dunno, a bit menial?"

"Oh, that's normal for interns at my level," said Ayane with a shrug. "You're supposed to distinguish yourself in the little things and make your way upwards. Since the Preserve's pretty open, you just take your data and collaborate with the others over the net."

"Well, it's not really my thing, so I guess I'll take your word for it," said Emma with a shrug and a grin. Their food arrived at that point, and conversation lulled around the table as the diners collectively tucked in.

"Say, what is that?" asked Emma after a moment, nodding at Ayane's plate. Their orders had been given over their implants, and Ayane had launched right back into her enthusiastic explanation without telling Emma what Ayane had ordered.

"I'm not really sure, actually," said Ayane truthfully, slicing off a piece of cubular meat product. She gave it an experimental sniff, then nibbled at a corner. "Tastes good though."

"Well, if you're lucky, it's probably goose liver or something," said Emma with a laugh. Personally, she'd rather know exactly what went into the mystery meat, rather than being told later.

Ayane chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. "Nah, foie gras is a completely different texture," she said. "Have you tried it? It comes out of the synthesizer just as well as anything else."

Emma wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I wasn't really a fan. Too pungent."

"Oh, did you not get it seasoned?" asked Ayane, popping another slice of meat product into her mouth.

"It comes with seasoning?"

Ayane rolled her eyes. "Of course it does, it's a synthesizer. It makes basically anything!"

Emma speared a green bean with a shrug. "Eh, I know what I like, and it's easier to just stick to that. I don't really care all that much about what food I eat, as long as it keeps me going."

"That's fair," conceded Ayane. "Though really, I'll bet if you took fresh intestines and stewed them-."

"And that's the end of that line of conversation," said Emma with a grimace. She didn't relish that mental image. "What're your powers?"

Ayane giggled but moved on. "Well, I'm sure you've already looked me up, but my principal power is self-powered flight."

"Yeah, apparently it's pretty rare."

"I guess, but it doesn't feel very special to me," said Ayane.

"What's your speed limit?"

"Mach 1.38 in Earth's atmosphere, at sea level."

Emma nearly choked on a piece of potato. "What?! You can break the sound barrier?!"

"It's not that impressive," said Ayane bashfully. "I mean, any given air supremacy drone in the Army can achieve that easily."

"Yeah, but it's still cool," said Emma. "You can go faster at altitude, right? Since you don't need to worry about the air density effecting an engine or something?"

"Uh, yeah, that's correct."

"So, technically speaking, you could do mach seven at ten thousand meters!" said Emma enthusiastically.

"That's a terrible idea," said Ayane flatly. "I'd light on fire."

"Oh," said Emma, disappointed. "That's… that's bad."

"Yeah. Although," said Ayane thoughtfully, "I guess it's not impossible that they'll teach me how to form an aeroshell in flight."

"It's pretty likely, actually," thought Mina telepathically from two seats over. Emma and Ayane flinched. "Heh, forget about the telepathy? Anyway, that's almost certainly covered in basic training, especially since drag's a big factor on your performance in combat."

"That's good," Ayane thought back. "What other basic skills would we learn?"

"Well, there's telekinesis, attack augmentation, breathing underwater…"

It was a long list, and Emma left her TacComp to recording the information as she glanced around the table. The other girls seemed to have loosened up and were chatting amiably about various things, none of which Emma particularly cared about or hadn't already talked about with Ayane.

"Emma, are you listening?"

"Eh? Oh, sorry, um," Emma paused as she played back Ayane's question. "Well, I do live here, but I guess a walking tour of the city could be fun."

(-)

It turned out that Ayane was living temporarily at a hotel near the starport, in close vicinity to the first church of the Cult of Hope. This also meant that she'd actually seen Kyouko Sakura, in the flesh. Granted, it had been from several dozen feet away as the ancient magical girl had been speaking to parishioners, but celebrity sightings were still celebrity sightings.

"Jeez, you're lucky," groused Emma as they followed their tour's route through the city. "I mean, celebrities usually aren't just walking around near where you live."

"I know, right?" said Ayane brightly, who was looking with interest at the first church of the Cult of Hope's main facade. "I just asked the branch office in Osaka if they had any places I could stay in Mitakihara before I deployed, and they sent me here. I didn't think to look it up before I left."

"Doesn't Osaka have a starport?" asked Emma as they paused briefly for the tour to take still images, taking in its unique architecture and the large number of magical girls making their way in and out. "It's a pretty important city center, after all."

"Yeah, but Mitakihara City's the… the sort of capital, I guess, of all things magical," said Ayane, as they continued. "I wanted to see it before I left, you know?"

"Not really, I live here," said Emma with a shrug, following. "It was kinda cool in theory back when I first moved though."

The two fell into a natural silence, their implants automatically updating their route with a line of white light projected in their vision and leading them onward.

"That's my hotel over there," said Ayane, after a minute of walking, nodding at a commerce tower to their left.

"It looks nice," said Emma. "What's it like?"

"Well, all you get is a bedroom and a bathroom, so I guess it's really not that different from living at home," said Ayane with a shrug. "The sheets and towels and stuff are nicer though."

"Do you get a synthesizer in your room?" asked Emma.

"Oddly enough, no," said Ayane thoughtfully. "Although I don't know much about hotels, so it's probably justified somehow."

"I guess," shrugged Emma.

"Do you want to come up?" asked Ayane, as they passed in front of the building. "You seem kind of bored, and, well, the city's great and all, but…"

"The tour's a little dry?" asked Emma rhetorically. "Yeah, I agree. If you're sure, I guess, but I wouldn't want to impose."

Ayane smiled happily. "Nonsense, I invited you didn't I?"

The ride up the elevator to Ayane's room on the four hundredth floor was filled by Emma asking about Osaka. Now that Ayane had seen Mitakihara, did she find anything different?

"Not really," said Ayane as she opened the door to her small suite. "All the cities are connected anyway, so it's not like there's any particularly different culture. Although I guess there's more restaurants in Osaka."

The room was sparsely but sharply furnished, with the single bed against the wall and a desk opposite for the rare times a guest might need to write something down. The carpet was white, without adornment, and a small closet was secreted in the wall of the entryway. Opposite the closet was the bathroom, which combined toilet and bathtub. Sconces in the ceiling cast everything with auto-dimming incandescent-simulating light.

"Wow, it looks pretty fancy," said Emma, admiring the synthwood door jambs and surprisingly large bathtub.

"The best part, I think, is the window," said Ayane with a grin, leading Emma across the room to a wide, outward opening window framed by white curtains. "Check out this view."

"Wow," said Emma, as Ayane pushed open the windows and they leaned against the window frame.

The view from the MSY Corridor was entirely different from the view at Emma's home. Transit tubes and pedestrian walkways crisscrossed the airspace, and despite living relatively high up, Emma's field of view had extended only about a hundred meters before the nest of man-made objects obstructed any further sights. From here, though, it seemed like the whole of Mitakihara stretched out before her. There was the Church, obvious from here with its architecture, and there was MSY Governmental Affairs.

"You can see Mitakihara Tower One from here too," said Ayane, pointing out the high spire that had only grown with the years, getting renovated once every fifty years or so to continually dominate the skyline from a far. Now long buried under scaffolding, trusses, and other construction efforts, the maintenance platform at the ages-past peak of Tower One had been the gathering place for the legendary Mitakihara Four when they wanted to relax.

"This is really cool," said Emma, looking out across the expanse. "I mean, seriously, seriously cool."

"I'll bet they prioritize the new contractees, to impress them or something," said Ayane.

"That's a little cynical, don't you think?"

"Maybe a bit," conceded Ayane. "But if that IS the case, I'm still okay with taking advantage of it. I've spent hours just staring out over the city, listening to my TacComp talk about stuff."

"I would too," said Emma with a nod, resting her head on her folded arms. The two fell into a natural silence, taking in the view in the late afternoon sun.

"Have you-," began Ayane, before stopping suddenly. "…Nevermind."

"What is it?" asked Emma curiously.

"I- well, I was going to ask- but it seems too morbid to really talk about."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "If you wanted to talk about the possibility of dying…"

"No, no, that's the obvious part about making a contract," said Ayane with a sigh. "I guess I was just thinking about how the war's attrition rates are kind of horrendous. I… I was going to ask if you thought we should write out a will, before we deployed."

"There'll be time for that later," said Emma. "I mean, we still have to go through training, right? And then there's that garrison duty. So we're not going to be actually doing any serious combat for at least a month."

"Yeah, but…"

"But?"

"I… I guess I'm just scared," said Ayane. "I'm what, fourteen? And now I'm supposed to be a great defender of all this?" She gestured at the view in front of them. "We're going to war two days from now, and, and-." She broke off, swallowing hard.

"You're not alone though," said Emma, looking off into the distance. "I bet a lot of new girls are afraid."

"You're not."

"You kidding me? Of course I am," said Emma with a laugh. "I've got a twin sister, you know. She's really important to me."

"But you were so calm at lunch!"

"I've got a mentor to help me through some of this stuff," said Emma. "Don't you?"

"I, no, no I don't," said Ayane sadly. "The girl who recruited me brought me to Osaka's MSY branch and left as soon as possible."

"Oh, that's- wow," Emma was flabbergasted. "Wow. That was irresponsible."

"That's what the girl at the desk said," said Ayane with a frown. "But I was too busy freaking out about being able to fly to really be bothered. I didn't really start getting afraid until the flight here."

"Well, it's normal to be excited," said Emma. "I mean, you just turned into a being of impossible power, it's not like you're going to be all that concerned with the 'ifs' when you can do loop-de-loops."

Ayane nodded, and sat down on the bed. "How're you handling it? Being a magical girl?"

"To be honest, it's not sunk in at all," said Emma, falling backwards onto Ayane's bed with a thump, before raising her hand to look at the ring on her finger. "It's still kinda surreal, to think that my soul's in this little gem now."

"Yeah," said Ayane, summoning her own soul gem, colored soft amber and embossed with bronze. She looked at it contemplatively. "You know, we could accidentally kill ourselves if we tripped and our gem tumbled off a balcony."

"And you were talking about being too morbid earlier," said Emma with a roll of her eyes.

"Well it's your fault for making it not awkward to talk about things like that," said Ayane, sticking her tongue out childishly at Emma. "Besides, it's not like saying it will make it happen."

"Not true!" said Emma, pointing a finger at Ayane emphatically. "First rule of football: never actually say what you need to do to win, because then you'll never actually succeed."

"But how would you tell your team?" asked Ayane, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Eye signals," said Emma with a nod. "A true team needs only to look each other in the eye to communicate everything they need. Such a bond transcends even romance! It is as if all the team were bound together as one soul, pulsating with the need to-!"

Ayane threw a pillow at her. The situation, and the pillows, deteriorated from there.

(-)

"I guess this is it."

Emma was standing in the starport receiving area with her family, Ayumi, Sarah, and Ayane. Sarah was still on leave, but said quite explicitly that she would be sending Emma off. Ayane, it had turned out, was leaving on the same date. Since her family was still in Osaka, she had already said her goodbyes.

The demon hunt the previous day had gone off without a hitch, with the new contractees integrating well with the main force. They had ended the hunt with a double checking that they had all their new equipment and upgrades from orientation, then exhortations to not miss their flight. Of course, this meant that Emma was early once more, too anxious to sit around at home until it was time to leave.

Now, though, she regretted getting to the starport so early. The impending departure now unavoidably obvious, waiting with her family and Ayumi had been torture, and she had fidgeted quietly the entire time as Ayane and Sarah made stilted conversation with Ayumi and Emma's family until her shuttle number had been called.

"You'll be back before you know it," said Ayumi with a confident nod. "We'll all be here, obviously, so get back in one piece, alright?"

"I will," said Emma. "Though I might have to regrow a limb."

"That's fine, it'll just be something else to talk about," said Anna, once again trying not to cry. "Just be sure that the stories you bring back are all good ones, okay? Nothing sad."

"I'll do my best," said Emma. "No guarantees."

The girls laughed at this. They weren't entirely sure why they were laughing, but it was certainly better than crying. As their laughter died, Emma sighed and turned to her parents. They stared at each other for a moment.

"You know, it'd be stupid of me to forget the first twelve years of my life," Emma said finally. "These last two years were hard, and I'm still angry about them-," both her parents winced but let her continue "-but thank you. For before then."

"Emma," said her mother, "We just-."

Emma held up a hand. "I- no. No, not right now. This isn't the time. I'm.. I'm about to go away, and I might end up dying. I know you love me, okay? But I can't deal with any more than that."

They looked at each other again. "Alright," her father sighed, finally. "I, at least, can understand where you're coming from on this. Just… just come back to us, okay Emma?"

Emma swallowed. "I can do that."

Silence descended.

"So, before you go, some advice," said Sarah, stepping forward and calling Emma and Ayane's attentions. "First and foremost is don't give up. Whatever you do, never doubt that what you're doing will, in the end, help somehow."

"What if.. what if we mess up and-?" began Ayane.

"Even if that happens, nobody is going to judge you for doing the best you can in the situation," said Sarah reassuringly. "Decisions made in the midst of battle will never be perfect. That's the second thing you two need to remember: your best is always enough. We recognize those who go beyond that because it is hard to do so."

"What about promotions and our careers?" asked Emma. "Shouldn't we try and move up the ladder?"

Sarah sighed. "The military is not for everyone, Emma. Maybe you'll find that you do well in the military, or maybe it's just not possible for you to reintegrate after your first deployment. But don't go into this thinking that you have to move up the chain of command. There is no shame in retiring the same rank as when you enlisted. Do you two understand?"

Emma and Ayane nodded. With another sigh, Sarah placed her hands on both their shoulders.

"Alright, good," she said, gripping their shoulders tightly before letting go. "There's nothing more I can say that can prepare you any more. Both of you, feel free to call me if you ever need help and my status is set to available."

"But, isn't that something you only do with your mentor?" asked Ayane. "I don't have one, and it'd be impolite to barge in on your relationship with Emma."

"It's fine, don't worry about it," said Emma, nudging Ayane. "Come talk to me and I can ask Sarah for you, if you're not comfortable with it, okay?"

Ayane looked between the two of them for a moment before nodding. "Okay."

Anna grasped her sister by the hand. "Make sure to call me too, okay? If you ever get some free time, I want to know how you're doing. Mum and Dad as well."

"Of course," said Emma, with a nod. She turned and caught her parents' eyes, which shone with unshed tears. Emma bit her lip and quickly looked away. "Absolutely. I'll do so as soon as possible, but training is going to be pretty busy."

"I know, but don't forget, okay?" said Anna one last time. She let go of Emma's hand, letting Ayumi step forward.

"So," Ayumi said, folding her arms. "Like I said, we'll be here, so just get back here in one piece, you soccer-obsessed lazy-bones."

"I've told you a thousand times already, it's called football," said Emma with a smile. "Get it right, nerd."

The two chuckled at each other. It still seemed odd that they were friends, but what else would they call their relationship?

"Your guys' shuttle is going to leave soon," said Ayumi, nodding at the entry way. "You better get going."

"Yeah, we should," said Emma, looking down. She nudged her bag with her foot, packed with a few sets of civilian casual and formal wear, her grief cubes, the CubeBot that came with them, and her sidearm. Everything else, she could retrieve from her personal datacloud. The bag teetered briefly, before coming back upright as the final boarding call for their shuttle flickered across her vision.

"Al-alright then," said Emma, swallowing nervously again. She looked around to her family, Ayumi, and her mentor. It would be a long time until she met them in peace like this. "I'll see you again soon."

With her bag dutifully following behind her, Emma turned and stepped onto the shuttle.


	4. Set Phasers to Stun

* * *

**Chapter 4: Set Phasers to Stun**

* * *

_Training as a magical girl is one of the most intense things I've ever experienced. You come in and don't know anything, and then suddenly are thrown into the some of the most difficult things you'll ever have to master. A lot of girls lose themselves by the end of it._

_-Flight Lieutenant Suzanne Lu, 2nd Squadron, 5th Aer Magi Wing, 2nd Army Group of the Rhine_

* * *

_You find out a lot of unexpected things about yourself and about others during training. The sweetest little things can turn into complete monsters in battle, and the biggest bullies can be the most devoted warriors at your side. Discount nothing, because it gets crazy quickly._

_-Captain Esmerelda Lopez, 2nd Battalion, 10th Regiment, 5th Army Group of the Mekong_

* * *

Emma fought for breath, running as fast as she could, then running faster because she couldn't stop.

The Squids had smashed through their lines, moving impossibly quickly. She had no idea what was happening , there was too much jamming, she could see the contrails of the evac dropships and knew that she had to run for it.

A crump, behind her, and then suddenly Emma was flying, spinning end over end over end until she was soaring over a cliff and gliding forward, arms somehow stabilizing her until she crashed to the ground by a riverbank. Dripping and sputtering, Emma pushed herself up out of the river and was met by the gaze of a Cephalopod Shock Trooper advancing forward, weapon raised.

A flicker of light, and suddenly Emma couldn't feel anything in her left arm. She looked down in shock and saw nothing but a charred stump, still smoldering. Snarling, she raised her right arm, then couldn't because it had been burnt away too.

And still, the Shock Trooper advanced forward, striding into the growing, rumbling water like it wasn't there, even as Emma had to strain with her remaining limbs to stay upright. Unable to keep her balance, Emma stumbled and fell backwards into the river, the icy cold water burning into the stumps of her arms.

In desperation, Emma summoned a windstorm, trying to push back the Shock Trooper. Inexorably, emotionlessly, it advanced, the windstorm doing nothing as it ignited a plasma cutter. With the hiss of servos, it stepped forward and planted a boot into Emma's chest, pressing her to the riverbed and submerging her head. Immediately, she began pulling oxygen out of the water magically, but this didn't matter as her throat was crushed a second later by the Shock Trooper's grip, pulling her up from the water at arms length.

Missing, now, both arms and without air, Emma could do nothing but watch as the Trooper tilted its head, intrigued by the blood trickling out of Emma's mouth from her shattered trachea. Then, as if bored, it lifted its plasma cutter and thrust it forward. The tip pierced her chest-

-and Emma awoke with a gasp , rolling out of bed into a crouch. Her TacComp suppressed her responses before she could summon her costume and weaponry, but it was still enough for Ayane to startle awake.

"Are you alright?" Ayane asked sleepily, after she figured out what was going on.

"I'm fine," said Emma with a groan, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against her bed. "Just the usual."

"Well, I guess the timing wasn't all that bad," said Ayane, checking her chronometer. "Looks like it's dinner time, then more sims."

"Of course there's more sims," sighed Emma, picking herself up from the ground wearily. "Goddess, I feel like I got exactly zero sleep."

"It's only been two days," said Ayane, pushing back her sheets and swinging her legs to the ground. "Are you sure you're alright? I thought the first nightmare was a fluke, but this has happened twice now."

"I'm fine, it's nothing a bit of magic won't solve," said Emma with a yawn, before revitalizing herself with a flicker of light. "Nn. I kinda want to go back to sleep…."

"Come on," said Ayane with a roll of her eyes, pulling Emma to her feet and pushing her towards the door. " You can nap in the sim later ."

"Agh!" Emma nearly tripped and had to do some fancy footwork to stay upright. "Hey, hey, don't push, I'm going!"

"Being lazy again, Emma?" asked a passing girl, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

"No, of course not Varsha," said Emma primly, adjusting her hoodie and shoving her hands into its pockets with mild indignation. "Ayane's just being pushy."

"I'm being punctual," retorted Ayane, shutting their door. "How're you Varsha? Did you sleep well?"

"Ah, well enough," said Varsha with a shrug, brushing her bangs out of her eyes as they began walking towards the dining hall. "You know I don't really sleep all that often anyway, but it was relaxing."

Emma shook her head in disbelief. "I just don't understand how you can do that."

"What, not be a bag of lazy bones?"

"Oh don't you start!" said Emma, pointing a finger at Varsha. "I get enough crap from my friend back home."

"Ah, fine, fine," said Varsha, backing off. "But still, you do sleep an awful lot."

"No, you're all just weird," said Emma, sticking her tongue out, to Ayane's amusement. "Anyway. How'd you do in the last sim? I got killed pretty quick, so I never really found out."

"I did alright," said Varsha. "Me and Rebecca managed to hold a position pretty effectively. But then we lost our air cover."

"Ah, sorry about that," said Ayane. "We weren't expecting that many drones to show up. At least you died quickly."

"Some consolation prize, " said Varsha with a snort. "Anyway, without Ayane and Company, we got overrun pretty quickly from there. I don't know where Rene went off to, but I don't remember her being around when the Shock Troopers hit."

Emma whistled. "Damn. It's a good thing they suppress the emotions on those memories , I'd hate to have that hanging over me."

Varsha nodded, grimacing. "From the looks of it, it was definitely extremely unpleasant. I-."

Varsha was interrupted by an excited Chinese girl draping herself onto Varsha's shoulders. "Heya Varsha, you going over the sim with the others?"

"Gah! Don't do that, Rebecca !" said Varsha, shooting an elbow at Rebecca's gut.

"Bah, you know you love it," said Rebecca with a grin, dodging the blow. "You're always so serious, Varsha."

"I'm not serious at all," grumbled Varsha, face tinted red as she turned to Emma and Ayane. "Help me out here, guys."

Emma was strongly tempted to leave Varsha to her fate, but a glance at Ayane told her to help the poor girl. "Nah, you're not that serious, Varsha," agreed Emma. "There are a lot worse in our cohort."

"Yeah, but she's still serious," said Rebecca, poking a finger slowly into Varsha's cheek. "We've got an entire three weeks of sim time left, don't worry so much."

"You don't worry enough," scoffed Varsha, pushing Rebecca's finger away.

"But we worked so well together, don't you have any faith that we'll pull through in the field?"

Emma rolled her eyes at the couple as they reached a large intersection. The group paused, and Ayane and Emma both looked around for Rene. Just about everyone who'd met Varsha and Rebecca was convinced they were going to end up getting married, if they both survived. It certainly was enough of a fairy-tale pairing, Emma granted, but even though she and Ayane had spent many an hour dissecting how relationships worked, Emma remained unconvinced.

"There she is," said Ayane, pointing and waving at Rene's form wending its way through the crowd. "Rene! Over here!"

"Yes, I see that," said Rene dryly, nodding at each of the girls in turn. "How did you all sleep?"

"I slept well, thank you," said Ayane with a smile as Emma yawned hugely. "Emma on the other hand…"

"I had another nightmare," said Emma, shrugging as Varsha and Rebecca sent brief greetings Rene's way before going back to bickering about something again. "Ayane's a little concerned."

"I would be too, but magic is an extraordinary thing, isn't it?" asked Rene with a shrug. "As they said back in the ballet studio: if it worked once, practice and make it work every time."

"Even if it just makes other things worse?" asked Ayane skeptically.

"That was the choreographer's job," said Rene airily. "As a ballerina, my job was only to express the meaning of the choreography. In any case, I hope the nightmares pass, Emma. Even if we don't need to sleep, good rest is important."

"Thanks, I appreciate that," said Emma with a smile. "Let's get going though, we're making a clot in the hallway."

The group of five moved on.

"So how did you end up last round?" asked Emma as they entered the dining hall. "It sounded like Varsha and Rebecca had a good run of it."

"Oh, it was nothing spectacular," said Rene. "After you got shot, I pulled the platoons back and held the line. I was too frightened to fight properly like Varsha and Rebecca, I suppose."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with that," said Ayane. "I remember seeing your defense. It was well conducted. You should be proud."

"Thank you, Ayane," said Rene. "Still, it is too bad. I wish to make a more positive contribution."

"A well conducted defense is just as important as a good offense," said Emma. "We learned that during tactics lecture, don't you remember?"

"Yes, yes, it is simply me being neurotic," said Rene, waving off Emma and Ayane's reassurances. "Rest assured, I won't be having any self esteem issues any time soon."

"Alright then," said Emma, before changing the topic. "Have you guys talked to your family at all since we got here?"

"Yes, it was… tense," said Rene. "My parents don't really approve. But, such is life, yes?"

"My parents wish I hadn't contracted," said Ayane with a nod. "But now that I'm here, there's nothing they can do about it. It's just really depressing, talking to them."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, my mom is always like…"

Emma shoved her hands deeper into her hoodie pockets as they stood in line at the synthesizer, listening quietly to the other girls talk. It struck her, at times like these, how truly fortunate she was to have a sister like Anna. Granted, she and her parents were still rather estranged, but Anna was being hugely supportive. They'd only been at training for a week, but Emma had made sure to send off a video message once a day, summarizing what she'd done and redacting anything that her TacComp said was too classified to distribute. Anna's responses could only be done in voice, but included snippets from their parents and Ayumi. The messages were always encouraging, and always made it a little easier to nap during break periods, with the accumulated stresses of the day made less so by Anna's comforting words.

"Emma, you're up," said Rene, nudging Emma in the arm. Emma blinked and scooted over to place her order in the synthesizer.

* * *

"I wonder if they'll split us up a bit this time," said Emma later, pulling her hair up and laying back against the VR Chair. She'd taken off her hoodie before hand, laying it on the armrest. "Change up the team dynamic, see what happens."

"I doubt it," said Ayane, undoing her braid and letting her hair rearrange itself appropriately. "It's a bit early in the sims, after all."

"I guess, but it would still be interesting," said Emma, the I/O cables clicking into place on the back of her neck and her vision graying out. "See you on the flip side."

Quickly, the fuzzing of her vision turned into outright darkness. Emma braced herself as, with something of a jolt, she lost feeling in her limbs. A light haziness began to consume her consciousness like water gently spilling out from the edges of a bowl. Emma let the current sweep her away, getting lost in the fog of semi-consciousness. It was a little like swimming, actually, except everything was warm and dry instead of cold and wet. It was…

It was…

….

"Eh?" Emma blinked away her drowsiness and rubbed at her eyes, sitting up. "What's up?"

"It's your turn to take the watch," said Rene, prodding at Emma's leg with the scabbard of her rapier. "I need to get my men off the line."

"Oh, right, sorry," said Emma, levering herself to her feet and picking up her battlepack. Technically, Rene was a few minutes early, but Emma didn't begrudge her. "How's 1st Platoon doing? Did you take any casualties this rotation?"

"Not many, only two wounded," said Rene. "The line will hold as long as we keep getting supplies, but we need to keep morale up."

"Duly noted," said Emma, climbing up out of the foxhole she'd been napping in. It was just after dawn, with the sun of the Cognitus system barely peeking over the flat, barely rippling horizon of the Adraxi Plain. Emma's augmented eyes allowed her to see the long chain of defensive fortifications drawn up along a ridge in the middle of the plain, with the cephalopod force opposite and fifty kilometers distant. Well within range of artillery and mortar fire, it was nevertheless proving to be frustratingly difficult to break the enemy line.

"Any tunnel collapses?" asked Emma as Rene followed her out. "Any tunnel drones get past our nets?"

"One or two, but that was in 2nd Division's sector," said Rene. "Our sector's quiet, it seems, but you know what they say."

"If it's quiet, it's too quiet," said Emma grimly with a nod. "Come on, let's rotate 1st out before something happens."

The two girls stole quietly along below the ridge line, trying not to be exposed to a sniper or call down artillery for no reason. Emma's platoon was already geared up, making Emma feel slightly incompetent for not being awake long ago. She shook the feeling off, and continued checking up on her unit. Everyone seemed ready, or as ready as they could be in a entrenched defensive like this. The handover proceeded as planned, with each fireteam getting updated and in position without causing a bombardment or a sniper attack. 1st Platoon wished them luck and withdrew, leaving Emma and her men to a long, tense round on the line.

"So, Chief, how's it going?" asked Emma, taking a seat next to her warrant officer with a sigh.

"Oh, you know how it is, sir," said Chief, inclining his power-armored head at her in greeting. "A whole lotta nada."

"You been keeping up with that manga you like?" asked Emma.

"Yeah, I got to download the latest issue while we were off the line," said Chief.

"How is it? Good issue this round?"

"Yeah, it was pretty interesting. Not much action, but we-."

A thunderous explosion rocked the ground as both Emma and Chief dived to the bottom of their foxhole.

"Get into cover!" Emma shouted mentally to her platoon, diving herself for the small tunnel under the lip of the foxhole. "TacComp, sit rep!"

Emma's field of vision was immediately swarmed with requests for fire support as a huge wave of enemy forces began advancing across the fifty kilometer gap between the two sides.

"Goddess damn it," spat Emma, ducking instinctively as another massive explosion rocked the ridgeline. "We need to get out there. Chief?"

"I can coordinate the defense here," said Chief. "You do what you need to do, sir."

"Thanks," said Emma, clapping her warrant officer on his shoulder and readying herself. "See you around."

She launched herself forward, running down the ridge towards the company's vehicle hub. To her left and to her right, she could see bright blobs of color converging in the same direction she was running.

"Some break, eh Rene?" asked Emma as she slid to a halt in front of one of the many infantry fighting vehicles their battalion had available.

"For the love of the Goddess, I just came off the line," groused Rene, reaching a silk-gloved hand down and pulling Emma into the IFV. "Let's get this over with. We've got the right flank this time."

"Good, that means Varsha and Rebecca have center," said Emma, double checking her equipment as a squad of infantrymen clambered in. "We should be able to pin the squids against them."

"That's the hope," said Rene as a flight of Aer Magi streaked over head, drones staggered above and below for protection.

"Right then, everybody ready?" Emma asked. Everyone affirmed. "Let's go then."

With a lurch, the vehicle's oversized tires bit into the dirt and launched them forward, the IFV's turboshaft engine quickly accelerating them to one hundred kilometers and hour as they went flying over the ridge and landed heavily on the other side, dodging mortar and artillery as they went.

Emma climbed into the IFV's turret to peer through its scope, zooming in on the enemy formations as Rene made sure their accompanying infantrymen would work to complement their attack. All four had assault specializations, so it wasn't very difficult.

"They're doing the typical spearhead," Emma called down into the vehicle, sending the report back to regimental headquarters to update the line as she said it. "Leading edge is all tanks, we're going to need to jump early."

"Alright, you go from up top and I'll go from the side," said Rene, positioning herself by the IFV's gullwing doors.

"Got it," said Emma, opening the lock on the turret hatch and linking the scope's targeting to their TacComps. The IFV, computer controlled by an integrated virtual intelligence, was already beginning its opening salvo on targets of opportunity, sending a spray of 30mm rail accelerated rounds down range and forcing the formation to make small adjustments to avoid them. As the two sides closed at a combined rate of over two hundred kilometers an hour, the autocannon fire was just enough to make the next part feasible.

"Go!" shouted Emma, popping open her hatch and launching herself through the air towards an enemy tank. Below her, she caught sight of a white and crimson blur flying out of the door, sparks trailing behind her before a jet of flame streaked outwards and painted a tank red.

Emma's attack was a little less flashy. With a blip of light in one hand and a howling vortex sphere in the other, Emma dropped out of the sky at speed for her target. The sphere was launched almost immediately and exploded just ahead of the tank, sending the multi-dozen ton vehicle swerving vaguely but kicking a spray of dust. The blip of light turned into a long cavalry lance, which was quickly launched into the tank as it passed through the dust cloud.

Emma landed on the turret and jumped again, summoning her halberd this time as the tank ground to a halt behind her. Continuing her forward momentum, Emma aimed for the next tank in the formation. A small, white hot fireball punched into its turret as it turned to track Emma, and Emma finished it off by cleaving it open.

"Thanks, but I had it covered," said Emma telepathically, landing on the ground, and blasting a passing enemy IFV with a vortex sphere. The vehicle's hull was rent apart, spilling troops onto the ground as it careened into the ground and broke up.

"Sure you did," said Rene, a jet of flame heralding her destruction of another IFV. "Just like you had it covered the time with the hover troopers."

"That was entirely your fault," answered Emma, laying into the survivors with her halberd rapidly and efficiently. The squad was dead at her feet in seconds, just in time for her to summon a twenty foot long sarissa, plant the counterweight into the ground, and level the point into an IFV trying to run her over. "You were sleeping on the job."

"I got more torso shot through!" replied Rene indignantly. "You can't expect- oh shit."

Emma threw a sphere into the IFV and ran, heading straight for Rene's position, where streaks of UV light were visible on Emma's augmented vision.

"Shit, I got a can of Shock Troopers," said Rene, mental voice tight with stress as Emma watched her backpedal rapidly, dodging and weaving while fending off melee attacks with her rapier. "I need some help here, Emma."

"Already on it, gimme a light," answered Emma, gathering a pool of magic as she ran, jumping over an IFV as she did so and slamming a poleax into it as she passed.

"And.. now!" Rene shouted, pirouetting on the spot and forming a curtain of fire around her. Moments later, a swirling storm of wind encompassed the curtain and turned it into a flaming tornado, expanding outwards rapidly and consuming the Shock Troopers.

This was hardly enough to actually kill one of the heavily shielded and armored troops, but it was enough to disorient them and drop their shields to manageable levels. Emma's halberd bit into one from behind, cracking its shielding, before a magically-backed follow-up kick shattered it completely. Emma leaped out of the way, allowing Rene to shoot a fireball into the Trooper's torso and kill it.

The banter of earlier dropped completely as Emma landed beside Rene, halberd in hand as she provided the defense to Rene's offense. Point bursts of wind magic kicked up dense clouds of dirt that Cephalopod laser fire couldn't penetrate without losing too much energy, while her long pole arm allowed her to fend off any attempts to close to melee. Meanwhile, Rene continued sending out streams of flame that ate at shields until they failed and allowed her to incinerate the enemy.

"We need to keep pulling back," panted Emma as they slowly gave ground to the coordinated enemy fire. "It's a matter of time until these Troopers get bored and just have us blasted."

"No, our fireteam have us covered," said Rene.

Anti-tank missiles streaked in, low to the ground and unnoticed in the fog of war. Emma wrapped them in a maelstrom of wind as the missile detonated on the Shock Troopers, the velocity and magnitude of the strike blasting through the shielding and ripping apart armor plates.

"Merry Christmas, Lieutenants," called out the team leader over TeamCom.

"Thank you very much," said Emma as she and Rene hastily gulped in air and continued fighting, creating a pocket around them where enemy troops were veering around. The tanks were already in range of Varsha and Rebecca, who were putting their powers to terrifying effect, the first by blasting whole vehicles into oblivion and the other by turning them on each other in spectacular explosions.

"Hey, don't mention it," said the team leader. "Just- shit-"

A fireball blossomed along Varsha and Rebecca's position.

"Gooddess dammit," snarled the team leader. "Their air support is getting through!"

Emma clamped down on an urge to go back to help their friends. Rene's hand on her arm made it easier to refocus on the situation at hand.

"Fireteam Alfa, we're going to need some cover to recharge," said Emma, summoning another sarissa and spearing an IFV. Her TacComp informed her that her soul gem's charge was dipping below forty percent. "We're going to need it very soon, actually, can you make it to our position?"

"We can make it, give us twenty seconds," confirmed the team leader.

"Alright, Rene, we have twenty seconds to give these squids hell," said Emma, surveying the battlefield quickly. The right flank appeared to have held, with the other girls assigned to the flank performing as well, or better, as Emma and Rene. The center was being backed by masses of suppressive fire from the main line, and the cephalopod right flank, the left flank of the human positions, was b eing bombarded at leisure by Ayane's flight of Aer Magi and the artillery assigned to that sector.

"We could use some of their artillery," said Rene, nodding at the left flank as she readied herself for another burst of magic. "This is getting tiresome."

Emma glanced over at her friend. Rene was sweating, hands trembling as she fought to maintain her composure. A brief query to her TacComp told Emma that Rene's soul gem hovered at just above twenty six percent.

"One last burst, okay?" said Emma, clapping an encouraging hand on Rene's shoulder, before pulling together her own charge of magic. The enemy attack began to stall out, with IFVs coming to a halt and disgorging their troops to try and push the line up.

"Right," said Rene, gritting her teeth with a laugh. "I do all the heavy lifting in this relationship."

"I'll buy you a beer later," said Emma dryly. "Now!"

With a shout, both girls blasted their spells into the enemy troops, fire and wind swirling together into a white cone of destruction, incinerating and melting down anything without high density shielding. The firestorm dropped after a few seconds, leaving almost nothing behind except melted metal and charred corpses.

"And that's that," gasped Emma as their fireteam pulled up in the IFV.

"For now," replied Rene tiredly, holding a handful of grief cubes to her soul gem as she climbed into the IFV, Emma following behind her. "Merde, why can't the squids just let us rest properly before they attack?"

"No idea," said Emma, sinking to the floor of the IFV as it roared off, the enemy offensive effectively broken here. "Bloody hell, I want a teleporter."

"We can always dream," said Rene with a chuckle, before putting the spent grief cubes back into her battlepack. Her soul gem sparkled anew.

"A nap does sound good," said Emma, her own gem once again ready for battle. Her TacComp completed an update, and Emma read through it as she put her grief cubes away. "Good news. Judging from the sitrep, this offensive's stalled out pretty completely. The fireball we saw missed Varsha and Rebecca."

"That's good," said Rene with a sigh of relief. "Who was hit?"

"Some girls from 1st Battalion, I don't know them," said Emma, their IFV changing course back for their main line. "I hope the rest of the them are alright, that can't have been a good way to go."

"We'll find out later, for now, let's concentrate on our own friends," said Rene. "There's little enough time for that anyway."

(-)

Ayane was scrubbing out her soul gem when Rene and Emma got back to the line.

"How'd it go?" asked Emma, sitting down beside her. "You guys were pounding the left flank pretty hard today."

"Yeah, 2nd Battalion got the crap shelled out of them," said Ayane, shaking her head sadly. "I think they hit a clusterfuck of Shock Troopers, who ended up just calling in artillery. We had to reinforce, or the attack would have spilled into that side of the line."

Emma and Rene winced.

"How many have been lost?" asked Rene.

"At least one girl from every company," said Ayane, setting her grief cubes aside for later processing. "It's bad. They might temporarily reassign some of you to fill in the gaps."

"Yeah, that's.. that's depressing," said Emma. "We'll have to talk to them later, give them our condolences."

The three fell silent, reflecting on the deaths of their comrades. They didn't know them personally, but every mage lost was another member of their community gone.

"We should check on our men," said Emma eventually, standing up. "We'll see you around, Ayane."

"See you," said Ayane. Emma turned to go, but as she stepped forward, a blindingly white light blanked out her vision, before-

EMERGENCY TERMINATION

EXIT TO LOBBY

-Emma was blinking at a wood wall in a chair, utterly confused. A moment later, her brain recalibrated and she was confused for an entirely different reason.

"Ayane, what's going on?" she asked, standing up and looking to her left, where Ayane had just finished recalibrating. "Why did they kill the sim?"

"I have no idea," said Ayane, getting out of her chair beside Emma. "Looks like everyone's dropped out at the same time."

Emma nodded, the mental cacophony of telepathic chatter flying back and forth almost deafening. "Let's get out of here and figure out what's-."

With a gasp, Emma was sitting up in her VR chair, being lifted up by Samantha, who was shouting: "Grab your things and get outside! Go!"

Stumbling briefly from the captain's forceful shove, Emma quickly regained her balance and sprinted down the halls for her room, skidding around corners and dodging other trainees who were also running full tilt. Despite this, a glance out a window of the training facility made Emma skid to a halt.

There were transport shuttles lined up in the grass outside, girls already running to them and lining up to board. It was an absurd sight, one that only had happened in the sims so far, not in real life. Then Emma's TacComp shouted at her to get moving again, making her jerk and keep running, sliding into her room and beginning to pack her things.

"TacComp, what do I need and what do I leave?" she asked, pulling open the drawers.

"Leave everything except for your grief cubes and your weapon," said her TacComp. "Training Cohort 7A has been reassigned immediately to active service." "What?" asked Emma, coming completely to a stop as Ayane skidded through the door. "Repeat that."

"Training Cohort 7A has been reassigned immediately to active service," Emma's TacComp repeated dutifully.

"Ayane, is your TacComp-?"

"Being impossible? Yes," said Ayane with a grimace, shoving her grief cubes into a backpack and slinging her sidearm on around her waist. "This can't be right, we've only just started deep-dive simulations."

"Apologies, but this unit is incapable of being impossible," reassured Emma's TacComp as she pulled her sidearm on and checked that it was safed. "Please comply with orders as quickly as possible."

"I don't believe this," said Emma, dumping her grief cubes into a backpack and checking her soul gem for contamination. It was clean enough to worry about later. "What's going on?"

"We'll worry about the update later, let's get to our shuttle," said Ayane, pulling on her backpack. Emma nodded, and the two of them ran back out, through the hallways, and down to the lawn.

The shuttles were deafeningly loud, even more so than the anxious telepathic chatter. Emma and Ayane winced at the noise and followed their TacComp instructions to Shuttle 048, where they found Rene, Rebecca, and Varsha.

"Enjoying the concert?" asked Rene, shouting telepathically. Voice chat was utterly impossible, this close to the shuttles.

"Immensely," Emma replied, to the nervous laughter of the others. They filed in behind the other girls assigned to the same shuttle and buckled themselves in. Moments after everyone was seated and ready, the shuttle lifted off the ground with the thrum of anti-grav, then shuddered as the powerful turbofans roared and launched it for the horizon at speed.

The interior of the shuttle was silent. This was partly because technology allowed passengers to ride in silence and comfort, even when their transport was soon breaking the sound barrier thrice over. The other reason was because the girls had finally gotten to referencing their TacComp updates.

A massive cephalopod offensive had just smashed through the outer lines of resistance in the Nile Sector. The outer colonies were already lost, and the Military was reeling as it tried to reinforce the salient. There were massive casualties, there were not enough supplies, but, worst of all, there was no time. At the rate the cephalopods were progressing, they would be within blink drive range of Samsara in five days. It would take two for them to rendezvous at the mustering point with their assigned units, and another two for them to make it to Samsara.

Emma and Ayane sat quietly, neither saying a word as everyone around them digested this information. Two days of simulations corresponded to roughly two weeks of real world experience. The units that were being annihilated, right this second, had at least twice that. If older, wiser soldiers were falling like flies…

What would happen to them?


	5. Deep Breaths

* * *

**Chapter 5: Deep Breaths**

* * *

_There's never enough time to say goodbye. It's the worst part about going to war._

_-Colonel Elizabeta Adamson, 8th Battalion, 9th Magi Oplon, 2nd Army Group of the Mekong_

* * *

_I remember once, being on garrison near the frontier. I found a nice guy in town, and we were going pretty steady. A Sq-... A Squid raid came and blew up his apartment. And that was the end of that._

_-Major Qing Lin Anderson, C Company, 5th Battalion, 43rd Regiment, 9th Army Group of the Amazon_

* * *

"Looks like we've all been assigned 12th Magical Division, 2nd Army Group of the Nile," said Varsha, scrolling through the roster on her implants as they settled into the cramped quarters of the _HSS Salvation_ , filled to the gills as it was with the members of their training cohort. "Me and Rebecca are headed to the 45th Regiment."

"That's to be expected," said Ayane with a nod. "You two work frightfully well together, especially on defense. I'm headed to the 48th, obviously. What about you two?" She looked at Emma and Rene.

"48th as well, 8th Battalion," said Emma. "It's the autocannon cavalry for us, it seems."

"I guess they think we'll do well there?" said Rene with a shrug. "It doesn't feel like we've performed any better in the cavalry than any other position."

"Well, the sim seemed to show us doing well," said Emma. "I mean, you don't think they'd just assign us to a random regiment, would they?"

"From the looks of it, the situation is pretty dire," said Varsha. "It feels like they would be inserting girls wherever possible, to bring any reserve units up to strength."

"Yeah, but what about the other units that are stationed along the frontier?" asked Ayane. "If the Squids are launching a massive offenseive, they have to have pulled units from the frontier to populate the attack."

"Well, I guess I could ask my mentor," said Emma. "Sarah's supposed to be on leave still, but maybe she got it canceled because of the attack?"

"It's possible," agreed Varsha. "If the attack is progressing like they say it is, then it would make a lot of sense to drop everyone out of their leaves unless they're on medical."

"You should call her later," said Rebecca. "We should have some fun with the others before we deploy! It'll be our last chance for some fun in a while."

"Rebecca has a point," said Rene. "The _Salvation_ is kinda cramped though, with everyone in it. _Salvation_ ,what do you have in your Rec Room?"

"I have several board games and decks of playing cards," said _Salvation_ , her avatar forming beside the group. "There's also holographic billiards."

"Thank you, Salvation," said Rene with a nod. "What do you guys think, shall we go to the Rec Room and play something?"

"Also drinks!" said Rebecca. "We gotta have drinks."

"Well, my synthesizers are at your disposal, but don't drink too much if you turn off your intoxication filters," said _Salvation_ , her voice tinted with a bit of worry. "You may be emancipated, but your body mass is still pretty low."

"That's true, but we'll be careful," reassured Emma as Rebecca hoped to her feet and pulled Varsha along with her. She turned to the others as she got to her feet. "Come on guys, you coming?"

"Eh, sure, why not?" asked Rene, standing from her bunk. "Ayane?"

"I'll come and chat, but I don't like alcohol," said Ayane.

"Not your thing?" asked Varsha. "I don't drink much myself, it's pretty bitter."

Ayane nodded. "Where'd you learn to drink, Varsha?"

"Oh, well, my colony didn't really care how old you were, as long as you had the cash for it," said Varsha. "I don't drink much, but I had a lot of friends older than me. It was just the cool thing to do, you know?"

"I.. not really."

"Eh, you're an Earther, I guess its expected."

"What about you, Rebecca?" asked Emma as the group began making its way towards the Rec room.

"Oh, I'm Chinese, you have no idea how crazy our liquor is," said Rebecca with a skip and a grin. "Rice Liquor is usually something like fifty-percent alcohol, but my parents always got the good stuff. It's like eighty-percent! Suuuuuuper fun."

"You're from a colony like Varsha then?" asked Emma.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm from the Yangtze Sector," said Rebecca with a nod. "My mom was mostly Chinese and my dad was mostly some mixture of Russian and German. Funnily enough, they were totally okay with teaching me how to drink. I guess they figured that if they introduced me early, I'd drink less?"

"Well did it work?"

"I guess it did," said Rebecca, pausing thoughtfully. "I've never really had that much, now that I think about it."

"It sounds like the colonies don't really care about the drinking age," said Rene. "Granted, I'm French, but my parents still wouldn't let me touch the stuff unless they watered it down a lot."

"That's not true, Archimedes II was totally obsessed with the drinking laws," said Varsha with a snort. "We just didn't care. There are plenty of ways to get a beer, at least, seeing as everything's based off capitalism."

"Same here," said Rebecca, skipping her way into the Rec Room. "I mean, Mom and dad had plenty of alcohol around the house anyway, but a lot of the older kids would go out drinking at someone's house. I went once, it was really boring. Just a bunch of loud music."

"I don't get it," said Ayane with a grimace. "What's the fun in getting your senses impaired? Besides, wouldn't your tox filters keep you from getting drunk?"

"It's the principal of the thing, you know?" said Rebecca, grinning as she pumped a fist. "Stick it to the man!"

Emma, Ayane, and Rene looked at her blankly while Varsha cheered as well.

"I just think Manhattans taste nice," said Emma, putting her hands up in surrender. "I… am going to get a drink now."

And so they got the small party under way. It was quickly decided that everyone would play billiards, eight-ball to be exact. Everyone took a moment to download the rules before beginning play, under the agreement that nobody would try and download strategies as well. The game quickly began sucking in other girls who got bored and wandered into the Rec Room, attracted by the laughter and telepathic conversation.

"Heh, it seems we got something going pretty well, didn't we?" asked Emma several hours later, sitting on a chair next to Ayane. She was slowly sipping her fifth Manhattan, intoxication filters set to 80% efficiency.

"It looks like everyone's having fun," agreed Ayane. She had finally relented and tried a gin and tonic. She still didn't like the bitterness, but a less-gin-more-tonic mixture was tolerable, at least. "Where are Varsha and Rebecca?"

"I think they went back to the room," said Emma.

"Oh."

"Well, everyone did say they'd be a couple."

"I guess."

"Do you think they're having drunk sex?"

"Emma!" Ayane scolded, flushing.

"Hee, I guess you're too much of a prude for that sort of thing," said Emma with a grin.

"I'm okay with that, it's just I, er," Ayane said. "It's just that they're our friends and it's awkward to think about that with them in mind."

"Oh realllly?" said Emma teasingly. "So I guess I shouldn't ask you if you think the 69 position is hot? Or-?"

Ayane jabbed Emma in the kidneys.

"Ow!" yelped Emma. "What was that for?"

"For being a stupid perv," said Ayane, face crimson as she drank from her cup.

"Meh, I guess I probably should put my tox filters back on," said Emma, rubbing her side. A moment later, she rubbed her eyes and sat up a little straighter. "There, filters back on. Happy?"

"Very," said Ayane. "Anyway, what do you think about your assignment?"

"I'm a little nervous, but I think I'll be okay," said Emma. "48th Regiment is supposed to do mostly support, so as long as we keep our heads in the game, it shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?"

"Well, that's the hope, I guess," said Ayane. "Varsha and Rebecca are supposed to be going to 45th though, do you think they'll be alright?"

"They're a good team, even if we keep giving them crap about being lovebirds," said Emma. "They just need to support each other when they're not both on duty. It'll be alright."

Ayane sighed, leaning back against her seat back and sliding down a bit. "We're not prepared for this."

"We're not, no," said Emma. "But we'll have to do the best with what we have, right? There's no such thing as a perfect game."

"I guess," said Ayane. She pulled her braid around and fiddled with it. "It's just that there's so many factors, and I don't know how all of them are going to play out."

"I know, I have the same problem," said Emma, turning her ring around and around on her finger. "Oh! We still haven't called Sarah. She can probably give us some information."

"That's a good idea, do you want to go find somewhere else to do it though?" asked Ayane, looking around the rather densely packed Rec Room. Frigates were only about one hundred meters long, on the outside, and the interior was much smaller. The Rec Room was consequently restricted to holding only about twenty people. The billiards game and multiple rounds of cards going on ate up that space, however, and girls were carefully edging around each other as they chatted and waited for their turn.

"Yeah, do you figure engineering, one of the fabrication rooms?"

"It's probably quiet enough," said Ayane, nodding. They got up and carefully made their way through the densely packed room towards the central corridor, trying not to knock anyone over and spill their drink.

The _Salvation_ was a fairly standard Frigate, with room enough, technically, to hold eight to ten extra passengers after the ten crew, but due to the need to transport large numbers of girls quickly, everyone was doubling up. Outside of the crowded Rec Room, the only sound that could be heard, was the distant thrumming of the FTL drive. The hallway was almost a straight shot to Engineering, but there was a lot less noise than expected. The various stations and rooms branched off from the central hallway, with the expected lack of decoration and embedded ceiling lighting. Red emergency lights ran down the sides and bottom of the hallway.

"Goddess, it is noisy in there," said Emma, rubbing at her head as she paused and leaned against the alloy wall. "I've got a headache."

"Are you sure you're not just hung over?" asked Ayane. "I'm perfectly fine."

"Ech, maybe I should just keep my filters on from now on," said Emma, grimacing as they began walking down the corridor towards Engineering. "Oh well. I guess the nanites will fix it sooner or later."

The two walked in silence the rest of the way, greeting the odd crew member or magical girl as they went. It wasn't a very long walk, in the end.

"Do you think voice call is probably enough?" asked Emma as the two of them settled down in front of a tool-bench.

"Well, I wouldn't want to bother her too much if she's busy," said Ayane.

"Alright, let me just patch you in and we're good to go."

The line rang twice before Sarah picked up.

"Hello?"

"Sarah, it's me and Ayane," thought Emma, wincing as she noted Sarah's rather harried tone. "We, ah, were wondering if you had time to talk?"

"Sure," said Sarah. "I can't be long though. I've been coordinating things with my platoon from long distance and there's a lot to get done."

"S-so you're going to Samsara?" asked Ayane. "We were wondering if other units were being shifted for the defense."

"Yes, most of the divisions on reserve have been moved back to active service, pending rearma- hold on," said Sarah. There was a long period of silence, before she continued. "You two are headed to Samsara for ground defense?"

"Yeah, we've been ordered to prepare for an extended ground campaign when we reach the fleet," said Emma. "The projections say that the Samsaran Home Fleet can't contest everything and will try to defend Samsara's population centers from orbital attack."

"What unit have you two been transferred to?"

"12th Division, from the Second Nile Army Group."

"Hm… the 12th is a little new," said Sarah. "You should be fine, but I haven't fought with them before."

"If they're from the Nile, then that means they were probably at the front when the squids attacked," said Ayane. "We're replacement officers, aren't we?"

"Yes… yes you are," said Sarah with a sigh. "The girls in your units will have lost friends, and the soldiers who survived will have lost their battle flags. You probably won't be accepted at first, there's too much grief and pain for that to happen. Just do your best, and give it time."

"Have you… have you lost-?" Emma trailed off.

Sarah paused. It was only a moment, but it felt longer, with a greater weight than her earlier breaks in the conversation. "I… I have, Emma. I've lost very close friends in battle before. I can't say that I treated their replacements well either. It's very difficult."

Emma and Ayane looked at each other. "How do you handle it?"

"Well, you know, we all have therapists we can speak to while on leave," said Sarah. "That helps a lot. There's a chaplain assigned to each Company as well, from the Cult of Hope. If you think it might help, you could speak to one of them as well."

"Did you?"

"I did, once, but I haven't found faith in the Goddess," said Sarah. "It's different from everyone. I would encourage you two to look into it and see if it helps at all."

"Why didn't you turn to religion?" asked Emma.

"I'm not sure it would be appropriate for me to say," said Sarah. "This sort of thing is for you to find out on your own. But, I'm sorry, I need to cut this short. What other questions did you two have?"

"Do you know anything else about what's going to happen?" asked Ayane. "We… we're.. we'd like to know more about what's going to happen. The updates only tell us what's already passed, after all."

"Hmm… I can't tell you that much, I'm not ranked highly enough to know all the details," said Sarah. "But, from what I've seen, the Cephalopods will probably attack in force. Blink drives allow you to move anywhere in three-dimensional space, so it'd be easiest for them to drop out of their teleport as nearly on top of Samsara as possible. You'll probably be dropped from orbit to intercept them, so dig in and give the regular army time to come up and reinforce. From there, it should just be a battle of attrition."

Emma and Ayane considered this.

"That seems… simple enough," said Emma eventually. "I think we can manage that."

"Good luck then," said Sarah. "I need to get back to work now. Stay sharp, alright girls?"

"We will," said Ayane.

The call ended.

Emma stood up and stretched. "Well, that was helpful."

Ayane nodded, getting up as well. "Tactically, it doesn't seem that difficult. If we just concentrate and trust in our commanders, it should turn out well, right?"

"I don't see any reason why not," said Emma. "I'm not going to say nothing can go wrong, but whatever happens, it shouldn't be beyond our capabilities."

"What are you going to do now?" asked Ayane as they paused in the doorway of Engineering.

"I think I'm going to go back to the room," said Emma. "It's still kinda noisy in the Rec Room and my head still kinda hurts."

"Well, hopefully, Varsha and Rebecca are just sleeping," said Ayane dryly. "I'll go back to the Rec Room and keep Rene company or something."

"I'll bet she's raking in the allocs at poker," said Emma, leading the walk back. "But you should try and meet some new people."

Ayane shrugged. "I'm not Rebecca, but I'll see what I can do. Send me a message when you wake up."

"What do you mean?"

"I figure you're probably going to take a nap," said Ayane.

"I… probably am, actually," said Emma, rubbing her head sheepishly. "Am I really that predictable?"

"Only with sleep," said Ayane, smiling as she pinged a mental image of Emma with cat ears and a tail towards Emma. "It's kinda adorable, actually. Emma the kitty, taking a cat-nap."

"Wha- No. I am not adorable," said Emma with a flat look as she immediately dismissed the image and stopped at the threshold of their room. "I am an ass-kicking squid-squashing magical girl, and don't you forget it."

"Sure," said Ayane, stifling a giggle as she continued on to the Rec Room. "See you around, Emma."

"See you," said Emma, waving before cautiously enquiring within with telepathy. After a few seconds without response, Emma carefully opened the door and peered in.

Apart from them now sharing a bed, it seemed that Rebecca and Varsha hadn't gotten up to anything.

"Phew," said Emma quietly, stepping in and shutting the door behind her, before crossing to her bunk and climbing in. "Hmm.. I should call Anna before going to sleep."

Anna picked up almost immediately. She sounded worried. "Emma! Where are you?"

"I'm on a ship," Emma replied mentally. "You sound worried, what's up?"

"You realize the attack is on the news?" said Anna. "This isn't something the Governance can glaze over, after all. What are you doing on the ship?"

"We're headed to a rendezvous point."

"You.. you're being deployed? But that's crazy, you left seven days ago!"

"Time dilation's pretty useful," said Emma. "I've been in time dilated sims for the last two days, and each sim lasted about a week. I'm not that green, Anna."

"Even so, two weeks isn't a lot of time."

"Calm down, you'd be surprised," said Emma. "You learn a lot when you're in actual combat, and that's only the last few full immersion VR sims. We did a couple of weeks of semi-immersive sims, er, subjective time, before that, so I've got two weeks of combat experience and a month of subjective training time. It's not that bad."

A moment of silence. Emma smiled as she imagined her sister, pacing back and forth in their kitchen just like she would when she wasn't sure what the most optimal way to solve the problem was.

"I… okay, okay, sorry," said Anna, calming down. "I'm sorry, it's just that the news broke about an hour ago, here on Earth, and I realized that there couldn't possibly be enough soldiers nearby to reinforce Samsara and then I started worrying and-."

"Anna, you're doing it again," said Emma patiently. "Sit down, okay? Stop pacing around the kitchen."

"I'm not pacing around the kitchen," said Anna, in a tone of voice that was very clearly that of someone who had just been pacing the kitchen madly.

"Sure you weren't," said Emma, rolling her eyes. "In any case, I did say I'd call. I'm sorry I couldn't do it sooner, I wasn't expecting training to be so hectic."

"Your recordings were nice though," said Anna. "I have them saved and sent copies to Ayumi. It's really cool how you can summon tornadoes now."

"Ah, well, it works better with someone like Rene," demurred Emma. "Slicey wind is all well and good, but fire solves all problems."

"Well, I'm glad that you can play football with your vortex spheres, if nothing else," said Anna. "I still can't believe you did that to that poor girl."

"Oh Elena was fine," said Emma, waving the memory aside. "It only threw her into the back of the net, nothing major."

"She was so angry though," said Anna. "It's just like you to do something like this."

"Hey, I apologized later! And besides, it's not like I didn't get punished for it. I had to fight our commander one-on-one for fifteen minutes!"

"But you probably enjoyed that."

"As if! Do you know how hard she punches?" Emma rubbed her stomach ruefully. "Last time I'll ever step out of line in the military…"

"Well it's good to see that they worked some discipline into you as well," said Anna. "Are you still napping all the time?"

"N-not AS much…"

"Emma."

"It's true though, we spend so much time in sims that they advise us to sleep during breaks."

"And DURING the sims?"

"Well…."

"…"

"I… well, okay, so maybe I take naps with the simulated enlisted men a lot more than is usually considered appropriate, but…."

"Emma, you really should make an effort to be more proper to your station," said Anna reprovingly. "You're a Lieutenant now, people look up to you!"

"Well, down to me," said Emma. "They're all, like, ten feet tall."

"Whatever. You get-."

"You're point, yeah, yeah," sighed Emma. Alright, I understand, I promise to take less naps."

"Good," said Anna approvingly.

"Anyway," said Emma, eager to move on to different topics. "What news on your side?"

"Nothing much from what I told you last," said Anna. "Ayumi's still looking for a mentor, and my studies are going well. Other than tha- oh, hey, hold on, Ayumi's calling, let me patch her in."

"Hey, Emma, how're you doing?" asked Ayumi later, barely restrained excitement audible in her voice.

"I'm doing alright, what're you up to?" asked Emma, curious.

"Well, Anna's been telling you about my search for a mentor, right?" began Ayumi. "I mean, there's plenty of people who are experts in logistics around here, it's just a question of finding someone you can work with, right? Well the guy I found, I talked to him just now, and you know what he said?"

"What did he say?"

"He said that I really knew my stuff and offered to get me an internship at Zeus Research Center!"

"Wow, that's amazing!" said Emma as Ayumi's excited squealing filled the chat. "Congratulations!"

"Bloody hell, an internship at Zeus?" said Anna incredulously. "That's so cool, and they're really stringent about this sort of thing too. You must have really impressed him."

"I guess," said Ayumi. "Oh man, you have no idea. I couldn't believe it at first, but I said yes, and a couple hours later I was sent this, take a look."

A request to receive a pictoral message binged on both Anna and Emma's fields of view. They accepted, obviously, and were treated to a mental image capture of an official Governance ID for access to Zeus Research Center, with Ayumi's school photo and other information listed underneath it. Scanners would be able to access it automatically, but it was still possible to take a look if you wanted, especially for moments like this.

"That's a real ID, holy crap," said Anna breathlessly. "Ayumi, I'm so happy for you!"

"Holy shit, Ayumi, you huge damn nerd," said Emma, shaking her head with a grin. "Goddess damn it, you actually got a job with a huge government corporation. Seriously, congratulations."

"Thanks guys," said Ayumi, her huge grin entirely evident in her voice. "I start next week, working in Procurement and Requisitions, after classes end."

"If you come across any secret projects, let us know, alright?" asked Emma. "And try to get on one. It'd be cool to say 'my friend is working on a secret project in Zeus Research'."

"Oh I'm sure they'll let a fourteen year old girl in on that sort of thing," said Ayumi sarcastically.

"Hey, if you see an Incubator, I'm sure that they'd be okay with it."

"That's a terrible reason to make a contract," said Anna with a laugh.

"Well…"

"Ayumi," Anna and Emma said at the same time.

"Ah, I know I know, jeez," said Ayumi, backpedaling rapidly. "Holy crap, the twins in stereo…."

"Anyway, Emma, what's this about a Goddess?" asked Anna. "You're not getting religious, are you? You don't seem the type."

"Oh, no, it's just some slang I picked up," said Emma. "You know about the Cult of Hope?"

"Yeah, the MSY Rep was talking about it the other day."

"It's just from that. You know how it is, when you hang out with a bunch of people who keep using the same slang."

"I guess," said Anna. "Do you think you'll be joining them though?"

"Not really," said Emma. "It's not on my scope, to be honest. Sarah says that I should talk to the chaplain when I get to the ship though."

"Well, it's probably for the best if she says so," said Anna. The group fell silent briefly.

"So, anyway, are you looking for a job as well, Anna?" asked Emma.

"Mm, maybe a little longer for me," said Anna thoughtfully. "I'm not sure where I want to work, to be honest, I'm just interested in the material."

"Well, you've still got a dozen years or so, right?"

"Exactly. If I get an opportunity like Ayumi's, I'll probably take it, but I think that there's no rush."

"Is there anything else that's been happening?" asked Emma. "Although, well, I guess it's only been a week for your guys, but subjectively, it's been a month for me. I've really missed you two."

"Oh jeez, Emma," said Ayumi, mood dampening considerably. "You're supposed to be the tomboy here, stop making me want to hug you."

"We haven't really had time to miss you properly yet," admitted Anna. "It still feels like you've gone off on a trip or something. It's… hard to imagine that you'll be in combat soon."

"Does the news look particularly bad from Earth?"

"It's definitely nothing good," said Ayumi. "Nova Terra's gone to partial war standing, even. I guess we won't know for sure until after you've already gone into battle."

"You… you guys, don't worry too much, okay?" said Emma. "I promised you I'd come back, remember? Besides, I've got a bunch of experienced girls who'll be watching my back. It's going to be fine."

"Hey, I have full confidence in you," said Ayumi half-teasingly. "Anna here's just being a worry-wort, I say."

"Seriously though, stay safe," said Anna. "I expect to see you again before Ayumi gets herself fired, okay?"

"Hey now!"

"Heh, I'll be sure to come for the party when she gets promoted," said Emma with a smile. She hadn't been expecting humor like that from Anna, but it was good to hear. "See you soon, I guess?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Anna. "Anything you wanted to add, Ayumi?"

"No, that's the only news emma hasn't heard already," said Ayumi. "See you soon Emma."

"Bye."

"Goodbye."

The call ended.


	6. First Impressions

_You don't really know what to expect, the first time you meet your platoon. Is it the same as the sims? Is it different? You don't know. You can't ever know, because people are people, and they're always different._

_-Captain Elena Winterset, 9th Battalion, 5th Magi Oplon, 1st Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

_Most people never really understand the massive logistical issues the modern military unit has. Hell, even in the 21st Century, the supply chain for a single soldier could be immensely convoluted. It has not gotten better with age. If anything, it's gotten worse._

_-Surgeon General Frieda Steinbach, 5th Battalion, 7th Medical Division, 3rd Army Group of the Rhine_

* * *

The _Salvation_ reached the Third Fleet of the Nile a day later.

"Holy shit, that's a lot of ships," said Varsha. The wall of the Rec Room had turned artificially transparent, giving the girls an excellent view of the shuttles flying back and forth from the frigates to the transport cruisers of the Third Fleet. The over six hundred transport cruisers of the Third Fleet, carrying the sixteen divisions of Magical Girls and three times as many regular infantry of the Nile Sector's Second Army Group.

"They've pulled in the entire Group," said Ayane, scanning through the immense roster on her implants. "I… wow, they've even got a regiment of human SpecOps."

"What're we going to do with them?" asked Rene. "It's not like they can do much compared to the Black Heart."

"Oh, I'm sure we can think of something," said Rebecca. "They have personal shield generators, after all."

"In any case, we should get down to the airlock with our things," said Ayane. "Our shuttle is scheduled to dock in a few minutes."

Nobody moved for several seconds, still watching the ships of the fleet. Finally, Emma picked up her bag. "Ugh. Let's just get this over with."

The five girls filed out of the Rec Room, falling into step with each other as they shouldered their backpacks and joined the slowly growing line waiting for the shuttle.

"So, Varsha, Rebecca, how did you two sleep?" asked Emma.

"Very well, thank you!" chirped Rebecca. "The ship gets a little cold sometimes."

"Rebecca," growled Varsha.

"All I'm saying was that it was nice, and thank you for not throwing me out of the bed when we woke up."

"W-well, don't expect anything more like that from me."

"Oh, not when you're sober at least…"

"Rebecca!"

"Hey, hey, calm down, you can argue about your relationship status later," said Ayane, rolling her eyes. "Let's not make a scene right before deployment."

The shuttle arrived before Varsha could compose a suitable retort, and the girls filed into the shuttle for the trip to their transport cruiser. It was a short trip, the mood dampened considerably by the oncoming responsibility they all faced. Emma kept to herself for the time they were in transit, allowing the others to chatter and make themselves more comfortable with the situation however they wished. Varsha and Rebecca appeared to be having a fairly intense private discussion over telepathy, if their expressions were anything to go by, and Ayane was analyzing the latest updates with Rene. She tapped Ayane's arm and then at her own temple, asking to be included in the telepathic discussion. Ayane nodded, before continuing.

"So as I was saying, it seems like the amount of power we'll need to sustain operations is going to be a lot higher than we dealt with in the sims," said Ayane. "Most of what we've worked on so far is defensive, and there's not much running around."

"It looks like that is the case, yes," said Rene. "What I'm worried about is the supply issue. Do you think we'll have enough ammunition?"

"We can only bring as much as we can carry down to the planet as it is," said Ayane with the mental equivalent of a shrug. "As long as the fleet can maintain position over us, we should be okay."

"The predictions for enemy fleet size are immense though," said Rene.

"It's true, but there's a seventy-percent chance of the defensive grid taking care of thirty percent of that fleet. I think our chances are pretty good."

"I guess… I dunno, I feel like it might be best to make sure our supply lines are clear on the ground."

"That's not our problem to worry about. We'll have to rely on our commanders for that."

"Well, 12th Division isn't really all that old, or up to full strength."

"But it's been in combat before, so at least all of the girls have an idea of what they're doing."

"That's true…."

The shuttle docked with the airlock with a clunk, cutting short the discussion. Emma and Rene said their goodbyes, confident they'd meet the others on the ground, before stepping into the airlock. The heavy clunk of the shuttle undocking came almost immediately after the airlock sealed behind them.

"You nervous?" asked Emma as the hiss of the air pressure normalizing filled the room.

"Yes."

"Me too."

The hissing came to an end, and the far doors opened, letting them onto the Quartering Deck of the _HSS Damascus._

The _Damascus_ was a _Bursa_ -class transport cruiser, designed to fit an entirely battalion of 1,024 soldiers inside its hull, then drop them from orbit to the ground in dropships the size of a small frigate. Each dropship could carry an entire platoon's worth of armored personnel carriers, as well as each soldier's equipment and spares besides. Emma and Rene would be deploying in the up-armored and up-armed infantry fighting vehicle version of the standard APC, the same one they'd been fighting in during the last sim.

"Well, I've been assigned to A Company," said Rene, nodding towards the bow of the ship. "2nd Platoon. I'll be headed that way."

"I'm in C Company, 3rd Platoon," said Emma. "I'm headed the opposite way. I, um… well. Good luck."

"Good luck," said Rene, extending her hand to shake. Emma grasped it and shook it firmly, looking Rene in the eye before turning away. They were as ready as they could be, they just needed to do the best they could.

The Quartering Deck ran nearly the length of the vessel and was several hundred meters long. For expedience, it was easiest for Emma to take the ship's transport tube system to get to her quarters. It was slightly disconcerting, falling up in relation to where she was standing and then getting whipped up to several dozen meters per second by virtue of air currents and artificial gravity, but the ride was short and Emma barely had time to be surprised before she was falling back onto her feet to land outside the quartering block for C Company. Space was at a premium when you had to fit 1,024 soldiers into a single vessel while servicing and docking sixteen dropships, so Emma would be bunking in close proximity to her platoon for the duration of the flight to Samsara. Each platoon had its own section of rooms in a single long hallway, with the rooms of the platoon commander and executive officer furthest within the ship and the platoon's common area at the opposite end. Each room held four soldiers, for eighteen rooms per platoon. Each company's halls opened to an adjacent common area, allowing for troops and magical girls from the entire company to mingle.

The transport tube came out right outside Emma's door. It made sense, since if the ship came under attack, it would be most expedient for everyone to get away from the hull and any breaches from enemy fire. Down the hall, Emma could see that much of the platoon was gathered in the common area, either chatting idly or linked into an entertainment system. She decided she would talk to them in a moment, but would first set her things down in her temporary quarters. The door opened for her automatically.

For a room dedicated to meeting an absolute minimum of what was necessary, the officer's quarters were surprisingly well set. Her bed was on the far wall, with a desk beside it for any administrative work she'd need to do. A chest of drawers for clothing and equipment sat opposite the desk, although of course it was entirely empty, given that she summoned all her equipment and had carried everything else with her. The walls and carpet were a soft tan, with the covers and sheets color coordinated to match with them. All in all, not bad. Emma wondered how much the enlisted rooms were like this.

Emma sighed and set her backpack down on top of the drawers. She'd only be in here for the next day and a half or so, needing the remaining time to kit up and get her platoon ready for combat. She took a moment to cleanse her gem of any corruption, and was surprised by a call from her Warrant Officer.

"Hello?" said Emma, holding a grief cube up to her gem.

"Lieutenant Sinclair, I'm Warrant Officer Ingrid Jones. I received a notice that you were on board, do you have a moment?"

Emma glanced at her chronometer. "I mean… I was planning on heading to the common area to meet the guys."

"I'd like to talk about some possible problems and nip them in the bud. I feel like it'd be best if we spoke before you did that."

"I... guess," said Emma, checking her soul gem again. It sparkled cleanly, but could do with another cleaning. "I mean, if you really think it's that important, but I'd like to keep it short. There's really not that much time until we need to leave, after all."

"Well, why don't you come to my room. It's across the hall."

"Alright, I'll see you in a bit."

"See you soon."

Emma ended the call and examined her soul gem. It glowed brightly, almost cheerfully, though she wasn't entirely sure how a gem could glow with any emotion. With a roll of her eyes, Emma returned it to her finger and walked across the hall. Ingrid's door opened automatically.

"Lieutenant," said Ingrid, standing from her chair and offering a salute. Heavily augmented for battle, she stood at two and a half meters tall. "Welcome to C Company, 3rd Platoon."

"It's a pleasure to be here," said Emma, returning the salute as the door closed behind her. She felt tiny in comparison to the giant looming over her. "I'd like to keep things less formal. If, er, you're okay with that. It just feels to… stiff."

"You can call me Chief, then, Emma," said Ingrid. "Please, have a seat."

"Alright," said Emma, taking the chair Ingrid had been occupying while the experienced soldier sat down on her bed. The Executive Officer's quarters were laid out identically to Emma's, with Ingrid's chest of drawers temporarily filled with her weaponry and set of armor plates, designed to bolt onto the nano-composite bodysuit Ingrid wore underneath her battle dress uniform. The threaded nubs where the plates attached could be seen at the wrists and ankles when Ingrid moved.

"I assume you've seen our last after-action report?" asked Ingrid, crossing one leg of the other and folding her hands atop of them.

Emma fidgeted. "Yeah, it's… well, it was pretty bad. You, er, lost your commanding officer, right?"

Ingrid nodded. "Lieutenant Madeline Adler. We had to pull back quickly, and she was part of the rearguard holding the LZ for our shuttle."

"Um, well, yes. If you need to talk about it…."

"You have enough problems as a magical girl," said Ingrid, shaking her head. "An old woman like me can find a therapist easily enough if she needs to, there's no need to make a younger generation bear my burdens."

"But it's, um, kind of my job to make sure you're okay for this, " said Emma. "I don't mind listening, if you need to just vent. Or something."

Ingrid blinked. "I appreciate the concern, Emma, but I've been at war for five years. I can deal with this."

"O-oh. Okay."

"But on the subject of problems, I wanted to decide on how much you will be taking command of this platoon," continued Ingrid. "As you know, there are plenty of girls who only work with other girls while their Warrant Officers take care of everything else. I believe that it would be best if you followed that example."

Emma bristled. "You're saying that you don't think I can lead this platoon."

"Quite frankly, Emma, you only have two weeks of combat experience. That's not enough to take over a platoon that just lost its commanding officer."

"It's still combat experience! You don't just forget everything after you get out of sim, Chief. I know what I'm doing."

"You've never managed a team for longer than a week at a time. How do the decisions you make early on effect things later?"

"I- that's- There's no reason to confront that! You don't second guess yourself, that's just stupid. Especially in combat."

"But out of combat?"

"What's the difference?! It's the same principle!"

Ingrid sighed. "And that's what I'm talking about. It's not the same principle, though it shares some of the same traits. Just because you can work with a squad to take down an armored assault doesn't mean that you're ready to command fifty plus soldiers."

"I- grlm…" Emma squashed her next argument. It wasn't like this was going to make a difference. Ingrid had a stubborn expression Emma had seen before. On her parents.

"You adults are all the same," Emma spat, standing up with a clatter of chair legs skidding along the floor. "Fine, if that's how it is, then I'll be your battle flag, but on one condition."

"What's that?" asked Ingrid placidly, legs still crossed as she looked at Emma with infuriating impassiveness.

"You're going to teach me what you're talking about, so I can actually do something in the future," said Emma, punctuating the order by jabbing a finger onto the Warrant Officer's desk. "And after that, I'm going to actually take a role in commanding this unit, because that's my job. Not to be the cute doll that everyone has to protect. I can and will do more than that."

"That's fine," said Ingrid, nodding. "I'll be sure to do that whenever we're off rotation."

"Then if that's all, I have some requisition orders to look over," said Emma, spinning and making her way to the door. "I'll send them to you for a double checking before approval."

"If you want to."

"Oh, I do," said Emma sarcastically, pinging the door open and stepping through to the hallway. "Wouldn't want to miss something important like an uncrossed "T", would I?"

The door slid shut with a quiet thunk.

* * *

Emma sniffed and glared angrily at the top of her desk, flicking away yet another requisition order and pulling up the next one. The desk simulated a three dimensional space for working in, allowing her to organize the information and see how her platoon was kitted out. Quite frankly, she didn't like the situation at all. They had enough fuel, but they were short on autocannon and rifle ammunition. On top of that was added her various platoon members' requests for specialized ammunition or weaponry, which had to go through her before they could be loaded on to the dropship. This made the logistics of the situation actually annoying rather than simply worrying, and gave Emma a headache.

A drop of water hit the top of the desk, and Emma scrubbed it away hurriedly. She was not going to cry over something this stupid. It wasn't like she was being pushed aside even though she'd trained hard for this.

With a snort, Emma returned to her requisition orders, squashing her anger and resentment and hurling it as far as she could mentally. She should probably apologize to Chief Jones later, actually. She was hardly being professional about this. It just… stung. A lot.

"New appointment, Company Preparedness Meeting," announced Emma's TacComp. Emma paused as it continued. "All platoon leaders are expected to have completed their requisition orders and have evaluated their troop preparedness levels before 0300. A virtual meeting will be held in VMR379 at 0315."

Emma checked her chronometer. It was 2342 hours right now, leaving her with just over three hours to complete all her work. A glance at the "pile" of requisition orders confirmed that she really didn't have that many more to do.

Ehh….

Emma quickly wiped her eyes once more, made sure that she didn't look like a crybaby on the first day, and went outside. The common area was still relatively empty, but a long range nomenclator scan told Emma that a good mix of the various subgroups in her platoon were gathered around the entertainment console.

"So… what's up?" asked Emma, leaning against the back of a couch.

"Oh, there's a football game up between New Athens' two league champions," answered Corporal Lewis. "The Eastern Hemisphere Champs are the- ohshitOFFICER ON DECK!"

Emma had to jump back as Corporal Lewis fairly leaped to attention, snapping everyone out of their trances and making them come to attention as well.

"At… ease," said Emma eventually as she took in the sight of a dozen people saluting her at once. "Um… I just wanted to know what you guys were up to. There's no need to be so formal."

"Corporal Lewis is rather jumpy," answered Sergeant Baker as he relaxed back into his seat beside Corporal Lewis. "Then again, he's on demolitions, so I'm not surprised."

"That happen a lot?" asked Emma as the room of grumbling soldiers returned to the game.

"Well, it's a question of blowing up an emplacement while being shot at, isn't it?" asked Sergeant Baker as Corporal Lewis slowly returned to normal, watching the game on his implants. "And, you know, lost most of his squad last engagement. Bit of a problem, that."

Emma winced. "Yeah… the, um, last squid attack was… well. Um. Ahem. So, football. Do you guys follow any other leagues?"

"Well, some of us are from Earth, so we keep up whenever we can with the Eurocup and stuff like that," said Sergeant Baker, biting his lip. "The colonials amongst us follow their colonial leagues, as you might expect. You into football?"

"Yeah, I was a footballer back when I was ten," said Emma, logging into the entertainment condole and setting the game into the top corner of her vision as she continued talking to Sergeant Baker. "We moved to Mitakihara though, and I didn't get a chance to play after that. Where are you from, er…"

"Chips is fine, sir."

"Call me Emma."

"Er, I… I'd rather not, if that's alright," said Chips, looking away. "It's…"

"I understand," sighed Emma. "Where are you from, Chips?"

"I'm from the colonies, Nova Terra's tangent systems specifically. We've been fortunate not to have many attacks. Some of the other guys aren't so lucky."

Emma glanced around, her nomenclator providing the places everyone was from. "Yeah… Arrenius was hit pretty hard. Is Sergeant Han doing alright?"

"She's… doing okay, I suppose," said Chips, glancing at the Chinese woman sitting alone to their right. "I… I wouldn't talk to her about it. Frankly, sir-."

"I know, I know," said Emma, scowling and resting her chin on her hand with a sigh. "Too new and everything. I'm surprised you're talking to me."

"I didn't know Lieutenant Adler that well, to be honest," said Chips. "Not as well as the others, at least."

"You're relatively new then?"

"I transferred in a couple of weeks ago," explained Chips, "I'm a fortification specialization, so I was in the back a lot. Only ever saw Lieutenant Adler from afar, but we had a few conversations. I was sad to see her go."

"Sergeant Han knew her well, then," said Emma. "My nomenclator says that she's on the command team."

Chips nodded. "Unless you change her assignment."

"No, I'm not going to mess with the organization a day before deployment," said Emma, grimacing. "It seems like I should talk to her."

"I wouldn't recommend it," said Chips. "She's seeing a therapist at the moment, but, well…"

"Yeah, I understand," said Emma. "I'll go talk to the others then."

Emma continued her rounds, chatting with whoever was willing to talk to her. It seemed that, like Chips, only the newest members of the platoon were interested in conversation. The others weren't disrespectful about it, they simply withdrew as soon as they could. Trying to talk to them was a little like trying to get that one very frustrating instructor to explain what he meant in more detail: the more you probed with questions, the more it seemed like they were deliberately avoiding the subject. A cat wandered through at some point.

By the time she was finished, Emma really just wanted to flop back onto her bed and take a nap. Instead, she dropped into an empty chair, squishy and low backed, with a sigh and rubbed her eyes. The same cat from earlier walked over and hopped into her lap. Absently, she scratched the cat behind the ears as she watched New Athens East begin a spirited semi-aerial offensive, bouncing the ball back and forth across friendly heads and feet.

"Mmmm…." purred a voice in Emma's head as the cat butted its head against her hand. "Oh, you're really good at this, new girl. Not bad."

Emma started as she realized that the voice came from the cat. She pinged it with her nomenclator. "Oh, um, hello Alanis."

"Hello," said the magical girl as she curled up in Emma's lap and closed her eyes. "Keep it up, new girl. This is niiiiiice."

"Don't you find this degrading at all?" asked Emma a moment later as she continued the gentle scratching. "You're, well, you're five years older than me and a combat leader to boot."

"Eh. Would you ever turn down a back rub?"

"Well… no."

"Exactly."

"But… I'm treating you like a pet."

"That's because I am a pet, for the moment."

"But you're a magical girl?"

"Don't think about it so much, just keep scratching my ears," said Alanis, glancing up at Emma to roll her eyes before returning to her previous posture. "Where're you from, new girl?"

"My name is Emma, and I'm from Earth," said Emma. "What about you?"

"New Volgograd," said Alanis. "To the right a bit- yeaahhhh…"

"…I'm starting to suspect that you're really only here so I can scratch your ears," said Emma.

"Pretty much," said Alanis unabashedly. "Sergeant Phan does a good job too, but I needed to make the rounds."

"Oh, shit, I still need to finish my requisitions and teamcomp analysis," said Emma, glancing at her chronometer and realizing she only had an hour to do both. "Um. Should I just-?"

"I got this," sighed Alanis, standing up and leaping off of Emma's lap. She glowed a wispy blue for a moment before landing in a crouch, much more human than before.

"Ahh, it's too bad you can't stay around," said Alanis, stretching and yawning mightily to reveal pointed canines. Emma was more focused on the fact that Alanis had retained her tail and cat ears to notice this. "Well, whatever, I guess I'll see you around, new girl."

Emma blinked as Alanis walked off, rolling her shoulders.

Back in her room, Emma dropped into her chair with a groan and worked her way through her stack of work as quickly as she could, making sure she didn't miss anything important and sending an order for a cup of coffee to the synthesizer. A small delivery drone left it beside her elbow, and Emma quickly gulped a few mouthfuls before finishing off the last of her requisitions. Still wiping the dregs from her lips, Emma lay down on her bed to log into the virtual meeting space. It took a moment as her TacComp established a connection, before her vision cut to black.

Emma's vision returned as she appeared in the virtual conference room set up by her company commander, Fatima Kosey. She, her executive officer, and the other platoon leaders were already seated. The virtual conference room held a circular table ringed by high backed leather chairs, one of which Emma was already seated in. A few scattered potted plants, for visual flavor, were the only other decorations.

"Ah, there she is," said Fatima. "Finishing your requisitions?"

"Um, yeah," said Emma, blushing slightly and rubbing the back of her neck. "I finished all of them just now."

"Hmm. Get started a little earlier next time, yeah?" said Fatima, slightly amused. "Anyway, let's get introductions around before we get started. I'm Fatima and my XO is Mei Ling." The Chinese girl seated next to Fatima inclined her head with a flat expression. "I'll let the platoon leaders introduce themselves then."

"Well, we've met already," said Alanis, nodding in Emma's direction. Her ears bobbed as she continued. "New girl's pretty good with the ear scratching. I like her."

"Of course that's all you needed to like someone," said the next girl, of mixed ethnicity and hair dyed a deep blue. "Emily Cross, Water Elemental, 2nd Platoon. Alanis is in charge of 1st, if you didn't know already."

"And I'm Qing Duo Yu, 4th Platoon leader," said the last girl, also Chinese with a streak of lime green dyed into her hair. "I'm a barrier generator."

Emma nodded politely to each of them in turn as she took the remaining empty seat. "My name is Emma Sinclair, Wind Elemental. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to business," said Fatima, folding her deep brown hands in front of her mouth and nodding at the table. A map of the galaxy popped up, displaying the cephalopod advances in near-real-time.

"What business, exactly?" asked Emily, head propped on one hand with an infinitely bored expression on her face. "It's not like our TacComps don't give us updates on this sort of thing."

"Sure, sure. I guess you already know about the projected numbers for the squid offensive. What are they again, can you remind me?"

"….um," said Emily awkwardly, realizing that she hadn't checked the updates in a while.

"Exactly," said Fatima pointedly. "And so, as I said, on to business.

As you know, the situation is rather poor. As of this time, the projected cephalopod arrival is almost on the dot with our arrival in the system. You've all been appraised of our supply situation and, fortunately, I have good news. 12th Division is scheduled to secure the manufacturing centers in the Kolasi Basin, so you should be adequately supplied after landing. This has been forwarded to your platoons, so there's nothing that should be a problem. 12th Division will need to hold the line and provide for escort duty until the caravans are handed off to 7th Cavalry for the rest of the trip. The exact routes will be plotted based on enemy troop movements, so keep flexible and prepare for a lot of boredom. If we're lucky, the squids will be forced to dig in across the initial front and we'll hit a protracted siege almost immediately."

"Isn't standard doctrine to try and force a siege?" asked Emma.

"Think of the larger picture," said Fatima, shaking her head. "The squids are going for a massive offensive. Given the numbers we're looking at, we may not be able to force a siege early."

"If we manage to get a siege at all, that is," added Alanis. "No plan survives first contact with the enemy, new girl, so don't count on it."

Fatima nodded. "It's the best case scenario, that's true, and what do we all know about best case scenarios?"

"They never happen without half the company dead anyway," answered everyone but Emma.

"Exactly, so let's not get our hopes up too high," said Fatima. "Now then, status updates. Alanis?"

"First platoon is ready," said Alanis confidently, her ears twitching upright for emphasis. "Our dropship is already provisioned, the IFVs are fueled and bombed up, and the men are confident."

"Good. Second Platoon?"

"We don't have enough men," said Emily with a sigh. "We'll do the best we can with what we have, but Second Platoon is only at 55% strength. The plus side is that everyone's completely stocked on ammo, but that's not much of a silver lining, all things considered."

"I'll try to keep Second Platoon out of too much action," reassured Fatima. "Third Platoon?"

"Well, the men don't want to talk to me much," said Emma. "It's understandable, but it makes things more difficult. I'm certain that 3rd Platoon will do its duty, but I can't guarantee anything more than that. As to our supply situation, we're about as well equipped as we can get without cannabalizing stocks from other platoons, and everything's supposed to be loaded up by 0500."

"Yes, let's not make C Company unpopular in the regiment," said Fatima dryly. "As well as can be expected, I suppose. 4th Platoon?"

"The situation is not much different from 3rd Platoon," said Qing Duo. "My platoon's morale is as high as you can get in situations like this, but we will do our duty."

"Good, then it sounds like we're about as prepared as we can be," said Fatima. "Mei Ling, anything to add?"

"No," said Mei Ling. "Despite being at only 75% strength, C Company appears to have sufficient numbers and morale to complete its mission and defend the Kolasi Basin. I have been able to secure the provisions for the company, so there are no problems there. We won't know more until the drop."

"Alright, then let's get started on combat exercises," said Fatima, standing up and changing sims. The simulated furniture flicked and vanished, leaving the group standing in a fifty meter by fifty meter, flat, metallic arena. Emma blinked, and Fatima had transformed, spinning a sledgehammer in one hand and adjusting the hem of her many-zippered leather jacket with the other. She unzipped one of the pockets and pulled out a lollipop. To Emma's left, Qing Duo had transformed into a hugely long sleeved gown of greens and light blues, a large and ornately bordered plate glass mirror standing up from magic on the ground in front of her. Emily now had a large water gourd slung across her back with a sash and an ankle-length jacket over a pair of black pants and shirt. Analis was now simply a huge tiger, and Mei Ling was wearing some sort of asiatic monk's outfit.

"Emma, you're with me and Mei Ling," said Fatima, gesturing with her sledgehammer for Emma to transform. "Rules are simple: three on three deathmatch. Team with the highest kill-to-death ratio wins. The sim won't be that high fidelity, but it'll work well enough for now."

Hurriedly, Emma summoned her soul gem and flashed into her outfit, summoning a halberd as she did so and quickly jogging over, "Um, why are we-?"

"Well, since you're new, we need to integrate you into the team's power dynamic," said Fatima, pulling more sledgehammers down from the air as Analis, Qing Duo, and Emily formed a triangle, with Qing Duo leading behind a giant plate-glass mirror. "We don't have the time, really, to teach you about platoon level combat, but we need to make sure that we can all work together as a team. We'll start with you piggy-backing on me and Mei Ling, then rotate you around."

"Oh, o- wha, hey, I can hold my own!" said Emma indignantly.

"We'll see about that," said Mei Ling blandly, body crackling with electricity as she and Fatima stepped forward. "Match start in three, two, one."

Emma was immediately ordered to support with her vortex spheres. Growling in distaste, Emma strafed left, launching spheres up and over the heads of her teammates in a typical blanketing attack. Green light lit up the enemy position, obscuring Emma's vision briefly. She paused to clear her vision, and nearly had her head taken off by a flying mirror. Qing Duo had summoned a dome of her mirrors, then waited until Emma had paused to launch all of them at high velocity.

Coming out of the instinctual roll, Emma was immediately beset on all sides by whips and streamers of water. As she tried to parry, they snatched her halberd out of her hands. As she tried to block, they flowed around and punched her square in the chest anyway. Emma was driven back, stumbling over herself, to land heavily on her rear beside Mei Ling.

"Ah, I see you are doing well," said Mei Ling in her furiously bland voice as she deflected a mirror with a lightning-charged machete. "Here, let me give you some help anyway. Fatima!"

A swirl of sledgehammers flew around them, soon charged with a horrendous amount of electricity, before Mei Ling set the charges flying into Emily's searching water whips. The water mage, barely had time to launch her water away from her before they struck, saved only by her combat instincts. A brutal sledgehammer blow to the sternum knocked her out almost immediately after.

"Aim to knock your enemy off balance, not just for the kill," advised Mei Ling as she pulled Emma to her feet and ran, avoiding a series of summoned mirrors and the Qing Duo reflections that leaped out to crush them under yet more mirrors. "For example, I will now attempt to electrocute Qing Duo's reflections. If I succeed, you take the opportunity to chop all their heads off."

"R-right," said Emma, pulling up a halberd and readying herself. Mei Ling suddenly stopped and pivoted. The reflected images dropped out of the mirrors now scattered around the small field, poised to summon yet more mirrors to reflect yet more images. It was a recipe for massive over kill, if allowed to continue. Mei Ling simply took a deep breath, then pushed outwards with her hands.

A wave of electricity jumped outwards, causing the reflections to scatter. Those who were too slow were immediately paralyzed and quickly executed by Emma, a burst of light all that remained of their false existence.

Suddenly, Emma realized that one of the reflections was holding much farther back than the others. It was not a great feat of logic to conclude that this was the original. Take her out and the reflections go with her.

"I've got Qing Duo in my sights," Emma called out to Mei Ling telepathically. "I think I can make it."

"Fatima?"

"It's probably a terrible idea," said Fatima, her telepathy carrying a distinct air of resignation. "Go for it, we'll try and pull your ass out of trouble if needed."

"That's… comforting," said Emma, pausing to parry a mirror and duck under the reflection's kick.

"What, losing your confidence?"

"No, no, I got this. Here I go."

Emma gathered her magic and pushed outwards. A swirling pillar of cutting wind blew through the reflections, scattering them in flashes of light and homing in on the original. Qing Duo pulled another mirror out and ducked behind it, the wind scattering against it harmlessly. Emma was on top of her almost instantly.

She immediately regretted it.

Qing Duo's reflections didn't respond as quickly or as violently as Qing Duo herself did. Emma's first blow was redirected into the ground, before the more experienced magical girl thrust her palm inside Emma's guard and materialized a mirror. Emma barely escaped getting her sternum crushed by twisting to the side, but a roundhouse kick to the back of her knees dropped her to the ground. She rolled, trying to avoid the curb stomp that followed, but looked up to see a mirror over her head and already whistling downwards.

The sim cut her senses before the edge of the mirror shattered her neck.


	7. Due Dilligence

_Waiting is something that's more intrinsic to warfare than death is. You'd think that fighting a war would involve more actual fighting, but I've spent more time sitting on my ass waiting for orders than I have actually fighting._

_-Colonel Mariposa Sponder, 7th Magi Oplon Regiment, 7th Magical Division, 1st Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

_It is also because of this that we [the Cult of Hope] do not emphasize holy books, nor hymns, nor dull mantras to be memorized and chanted. All of those things are the mere trappings of artifice, and unnecessary. We pay for our entrance into Heaven with the lives we lead, not our worship._

_-Kyouko Sakura, Sister of the Cult of Hope, Member of the Mitakihara Four_

* * *

It turned out that, fortunately, Emma had been enough of a distraction for Mei Ling to zap Qing Duo from a distance, allowing the remaining two members of Emma's team to disassemble Alanis easily. What followed afterwards was a grueling dissection of Emma's performance, assisted with frame-by-frame analysis of what the other girls had seen. Emma had never felt so very small before in her life, and the added humiliation of being so easily defeated did not help matters.

The point, however, was for Emma to find a place in the group dynamic.

"Well, all things considered, that could have been a lot worse," said Emily as she pulled her water back into her gourd and dismissed her transformation. "What do you think, Qing?"

"I think it should work out," said Qing Duo, lifting her arms out then pulling them back in to make the sleeves of her gown billow as she sighed thoughtfully. "She fights hard and loudly, which will give us space to make our kills."

"That's one way of putting it," said Emily, snorting. "Another way would be to say-."

"Emily," said Fatima. "Is there anything else you need to take care of?"

"…Yes. I'll get going then. See you guys around."

"I need to leave as well," said Qing Duo, dropping her transformation as Emily logged out. "Goodbye."

"You did well today," said Fatima, turning to Emma as the others made their goodbyes and left. "You alright?"

Emma was studiously unamused with Emily, but took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Good, then a few things before you deploy," said Fatima. "First, make a will."

"Ah, right," said Emma, blinking once before nodding. "What would you suggest?"

"The military and the MSY have templates you can use," said Fatima. "Here, I prefer this one-." Emma's implants blipped the filename into the corner of her vision as Fatima continued "-because it's a pretty easy little form."

"Ah, okay," said Emma, glancing over the text before storing it away in her memory. "The second thing?"

"Make sure to call your family one more time," said Fatima. "I took a look at your personnel file. It sounds like you and Anna are pretty close, so don't fuck it up."

"Right," said Emma with a nod. "I'll, uh, see you at deployment time then?"

"See you," said Fatima. She waved as she logged out, taking the simulation along with it.

Emma was now faced with several hours to kill. She logged out, returning to her body on her bed, and contemplated her options.

By habit, she pulled the template up and began to read through it. As Fatima had said, it was a very straight-forward document. It started by asking her to give her name, state that she was of sound mind, and other things, worded in ceremonial language, that should have gone unsaid but were made explicit regardless. From there it moved to her estate and how it was going to be divided, then the executor of all of that.

Well that was going to be Anna, obviously, and Emma filled the blank in almost idly. She also wrote her name into the top and confirmed that yes, she was, in fact, sane.

Her estate though, that was a little tricky. There was the huge amount of allocs that she would probably accrue, at least comparatively, but if she decided to split it evenly between her friends that would probably work. So that meant, what, sixteen and a bit percent to each person?

But… should she include her parents in this? It was true that she didn't have the best relationship with them, but at the same time it seemed cruel to just cut them out of her will completely. If she died, she didn't want to leave behind something the idea that she actually, really, had no shits to give about the people who raised her.

Emma swallowed, shivering. Jeez, dying. That was a scary thought. It wasn't really a thing that she'd thought about before, and even now it seemed abstract and far away. The footballer in her enthusiastically disregarded death as less important than achieving whatever she could, but the ever hated logistics officer calmly retorted that death was a cold fact that had to be faced.

For that matter, she thought as she put the will away for now, how did a magical girl face death? For a normal human, this wasn't anything particularly difficult: dying meant that your body stopped working. But that wasn't necessarily true. Emma's mental state had a close link to the state of her soul gem, and it was extremely possible for Emma to die from pure angst and despair.

That, she decided, had to be one of the stupidest ways to die, ever. She understood why people would do that, of course, but she resolved to stay positive and not let her soul gem darken from despair.

Speaking of which, what was it with that Goddess? Sarah had mentioned it during the call from the _Salvation_ , and Emma knew that a lot of girls had faith in her, but what _was_ the Goddess, exactly? And how did she save girls from despair, whatever that meant?

Well, she had time to kill.

"TacComp, is the Chaplain available?" Emma asked.

"The chaplain is unavailable for full consciousness conferencing," answered the TacComp. "Would you like to make a Chat Room with a portion of her consciousness? Please be advised that you may not be able to achieve full fidelity."

Emma shrugged. "Yes, make the connection."

"Complying…"

Emma fiddled with her soul gem, as she waited. She'd looked at it several times by now, sitting idly and waiting for a sim or whatever. Whenever it was fully purified, it always had the same sort of glitter surrounding its glow. It was kind of interesting, watching the bits of light orbiting around the glowing center within the crystal.

"Connection successful," announced Emma's TacComp. "Logging you in."

Emma fused the gem back into its ring form just before her vision cut out, then returned within the confines of a brick walled chapel. In the center was an altar and accompanying podium, standing beneath a wide skylight that cast all in a wash of white light. The walls and floor were panelled over with dark wood. The same wood was used to construct the pews. High windows let in a light breeze, making strands of crystal, tied to the skylight and reaching to the ground, twinkle and clink against each in a facsimile of a melody. The sound of quiet, meditative chanting echoed in from somewhere off in the distance.

"Hello," said a small girl to Emma's right, dressed in an aggressive looking costume that was offset by the white shawl wrapped around her shoulders. "My name is Abigail. How can I help you?"

"Ah, hi," said Emma, slightly disconcerted by needing to look down at the significantly older magical girl. "I had a few questions about the cult?"

"Well, that's what I'm here for," said Abigail with a smile. "Please, have a seat."

"Thanks," said Emma, sitting down in one of the pews. Abigail perched next to her on the back of a pew, resting her feet on Emma's pew. "You're, um, not really what I expected."

"You mean the costume?" asked Abigail, gesturing at herself with a wry smile. "Everyone says that. I was a headstrong and aggressive girl back in my day, but it's been a long time since this costume has matched my personality."

"Oh. Did that happen after you became a chaplain?"

"Before, actually," said Abigail. "You see, I was in the 8th Magi Oplon Regiment."

Emma winced. The Magi Oplon were where combat specialists got reassigned. They typically took the most dangerous missions, since they were more likely to survive them. This did nothing to reduce the number of casualties or the horrors they saw. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be, at the time I enjoyed it," admitted Abigail. "I have a mild case of battlelust, so it was always fun ripping off heads and using them to bash squids in." She smiled at the memories. "But that's neither here nor there. Did you have any specific questions?"

"Well, I guess the first question would be what IS, the Goddess, exactly?" said Emma. "Other than the obvious part from the news. Like, it's all well and good to say that there's a thing here, but what exactly is that thing?"

"Well, that's a bit complicated," said Abigail, scratching her nose. "You know the other basics, I'm sure?"

"That the Goddess is supposed to watch over us all and save us from despair, right?"

"That's it exactly," said Abigail. "So, with that as the basis, there's a few theories."

"Theories?" asked Emma, raising an eyebrow.

"Do keep in mind that we're rather young for a religion," said Abigail with a smile. "It's difficult to answer questions concretely when you've only been around for a few years."

"I, well, I guess that's fair," conceded Emma. "But anyway….?"

"Right, so the first major theory is that the Goddess is an incorporeal hyper dimensional being that can jump between dimensions to pop into space and save us from despair by taking it upon herself and storing it or something. It's a little crazy, but it does work. Another is that She's a spiritual entity that lives upon a higher plane of existence, and that she gathers our souls to this plane when we die so that we may live in everlasting peace for our sacrifice. That comes from the girls with vaguely Judeo-Christian backgrounds, obviously, and makes a good deal of sense on it own. The last major theory is that the Goddess isn't a godly being at all, but rather was compelled into the service of a still higher God, and that it watches over us all for good and for ill. If you can't tell, that's blatantly an integration of the Cult of Hope into Christianity, and works for what it is, but isn't all that widely accepted."

"That all sounds so…" began Emma, searching for the correct term. "…convenient."

Abigail laughed. "I thought so too, back when I first heard of the Cult. It's pretty dumb, from a rational standpoint. I mean, the first question you ask is why would anyone care?"

"Well, yeah," agreed Emma. "I mean, I'm no Mami Tomoe, right?"

Abigail nodded vigorously. "And why despair? Why not save us all the trouble and blow the squids back to wherever they come from?"

Emma snapped her fingers. "Exactly. And how do you save someone from despair anyway? Like, do you show up when they're about to die and sing lullabies in their ear or something?"

"Actually, that does work," said Abigail. "Standard procedure with some of the medical staff. The Mental Health Division has a lot of girls who have song-spell powers."

"Seriously."

"Yeah."

"That is… wow. I.. I don't know what to say."

"I thought it was pretty lame, myself," said Abigail with a shrug. "Like, wow, songs? Really? What're you going to do, serenade the squids to death?"

Emma laughed. "But, uh, if you don't mind me asking, if you had all these questions, what made you believe in the Goddess? It sounds like a lot of those haven't really been answered, even.

"A friend died," said Abigail. "We were fighting near the beginning of the war. None of us really knew what we were doing, and she took a sniper round through the gut. Was still alive, obviously. A single sniper can't take one of us out just like that. But her gem was already low, and trying to regenerate the wound took her to zero. I was trying to keep her gem pure when it went critical and started to crack."

Abigail paused, taking a deep breath. Emma noticed that the girl's eyes were shining with unshed tears.

"I don't want to-" Emma began, but Abigail cut her off.

"No, it's fine," said Abigail, wiping her eyes. "Haah. Anyway. My friend's gem was going critical and there was nothing I could do to stop it, so I just hugged her close. We were both crying, obviously, but just before she died, my friend suddenly stopped. I looked up, hoping for some sort of crazy miracle, and she was staring off over my head. There was this look of wonderment and joy on her face, and she died smiling. I couldn't get that out of my mind, so I went off to our chaplain. The rest is history."

Emma shut her mouth with a small click. "I… wow. I mean, there are a lot of things that could make you think you saw the Goddess, but that's… really impressive."

"Well, in terms of Her glory, yeah, it's pretty blatant," said Abigail. "You'd think that a Goddess that's incorporeal and stuff wouldn't be able to effect the world that concretely, but apparently it's totally a thing."

Emma swallowed. "I'm… well, I was pretty skeptical at first, but now I don't really know," she said. "Can I come around some other time, to ask you some more questions?"

"Absolutely, it's what I'm here for," said Abigail. "I'm also technically part of the MHD, so I've got some basic counseling skills if you need it as well. Feel free to ask me about anything, and if nothing else I can send you to someone who can help you out some more."

"Alright, thanks," said Emma, smiling as she stood and shook Abigail's hand. "For now, I guess, I'm out of questions. I'll see you around, I guess?"

"See you around, Emma Sinclair," said Abigail. She bowed at the waist, as Emma logged out, and intoned: "May the Goddess watch over the path that you walk."

Emma blinked as she looked up at the ceiling of her quarters. She had expected many things from the Cult of Hope, but actual, tangible evidence of their Goddess had not been one of them. There were a lot of things they taught you about the old religions, Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, and the like, but the one constant was that they never really could show you exactly who or what you were worshipping, only asking you to "have faith" in the existence of the deity in question.

"This Cult might actually be on to something," Emma said to herself, manifesting her soul gem and holding it up. It was certainly a comforting thought, that the bright glow of her gem would always be saved by some being beyond this existence.

Emma took a deep breath and reformed her soul gem as a ring. Maybe it was comforting, but Emma wasn't going to put her faith into a story and some hopeful thoughts. Playing football, Emma had always relied on training and being one step ahead of her opponents, and that wasn't going to change now.

Emma called Anna as she sat up and swung her legs down off the bed to the floor, sitting upright on the edge of the bed and pulling up her incomplete will. It took a moment for Anna to pick up.

"Hi Emma! What's up? How're you doing?"

"Hey Anna," said Emma, smiling at her sister. The video call projected the head and shoulders of the participants at arm's length from their counterpart. "I'm doing alright, thanks. How about you?"

"Same as usual," said Anna with a shrug. "There's a pretty dumb team project we've been assigned, and I'm trying to convince my teammates that we need to get started on it now."

"Oh yeah? What about Ayumi?"

"She's not in the same class, she's working on something else," said Anna. "It's a bit unfortunate, really, but I suppose it's for the best. Learning how to deal with people and all that, right?"

"Well, you've done this sort of thing before," said Emma. "Remember, a couple of months ago?"

"Oh, right," said Anna, face going flat. "THAT thing. Didn't we decide never to speak of it again?"

"Well you keep bringing up my thing with the football."

"Fine, fine," said Anna, waving away the comment. "What else is up?"

"Ah, well, I'm trying to write my will and needed some advice."

"Ah." Anna blinked and glanced away, looking uncomfortable. "What can I do to help?"

"I was thinking about Mum and Dad," said Emma, realizing that she'd made things slightly awkward. "What do you, um, think I should do about it all?"

"Well include them, obviously," said Anna. "It'd be stupid to exclude Mum and Dad from your will."

"Should I just, ah, split things evenly between them?"

"That sounds about right," said Anna, swallowing. "Was… was that all?"

"One more thing," said Emma. "I named you my executor."

"O-oh, um, well," stuttered Anna, blinking. "That, um, well, I- okay then."

"Are you sure?" asked Emma worriedly. "I don't want to force you into something you don't want to do."

"Y-yes," said Anna, nodding. "I'm honored, really. I guess it's just not something I thought about."

"Yeah, I was kind of the same way," said Emma, scratching her head. "I got my ass kicked from here to London today during, ah, well I believe the term is 'team bonding time'."

"Really?" asked Anna, jumping on the new topic. "Tell me about it?"

"Sure, it went like this…."

Emma's recount of the fighting handily sidestepped the more violent parts, such as the time Emily punched a hole through her neck with a water streamer. From there, the conversation snowballed. Her platoon's reserved response to her presence and Ingrid's frustratingly stonewalled blockage of any attempts to manage the platoon found their way into an angry rant about Emma's day.

"Ah, well, I'm sure it will be fine," said Anna soothingly as Emma dropped onto her bed in a huff. "It does sound a lot like back when we first moved to Mitakihara though."

"How so?" asked Emma dryly.

"Well, you remember the time with Miyuki?"

Emma grimaced. Miyuki had been a particularly unpleasant girl back in Emma's first year of study. Miyuki had taken the lead in a small group project and done just about everything possible to push Emma to the side and minimize her involvement. "Yeah."

"Well, do you remember how we dealt with it?"

"I remember wanting to 'accidentally' kick a football into her face," said Emma. "Technically, that's not violence, right?"

Anna laughed. "Yes, I remember that as well. But I was referring more to the fact that you ended up just flatly telling her that you were sick of it and would be participating."

"Oh, that's right, I did that too," said Emma. There had actually been a bit of a screaming match, but Emma wasn't going to press Anna's rose-tinted remembrance of the event. "Wait, are you suggesting I do the same here?"

"I mean, it can't make things much worse than they are, can it?" asked Anna. "Mrs. Jones sounds like she would appreciate that sort of response."

"I guess," said Emma, scratching her nose. "I guess I'll try it later, when we deploy."

"When is that, have you been keeping track?" asked Anna.

"It's not for awhile," said Emma, double-checking on her chronometer just in case. "I've still got some time to kill."

There followed an awkward silence.

"Well, I should probably get started on my assignment sooner rather than later," said Anna, scratching her cheek. "If, um, if it's alright with you?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," said Emma, nodding. "You go on ahead, I'll finish my will then."

"Alright, good bye. See you soon."

* * *

Emma finished her will in an hour or so, and whiled the remaining time away playing a football sim by remote connection to the entertainment console. As it turned out, a few of the soldiers under her command were playing as well, and she joined them for a few rounds of casual footballing. It never got very serious, and Emma logged out fairly early and made her way to the hanger.

Emma was, naturally, the first girl to arrive at the hanger bay. Despite this, the hanger, pressurized at the moment, was filled with an astounding amount of activity. Emma found a perch atop a crane and watched the proceedings, her backpack hooked over a small protrusion as the crane swung back and forth, loading things from one deck to another.

She wasn't the only girl who thought watching from a crane was a good plan. After awhile, other girls began to show up, perching on the ends of cranes and looking out over the space. Emma even had a few join her on her crane, though none of them spoke to each other. This was a time for contemplation and meditation on the things to come, after all.

"T-minus thirty minutes," said one of them. "We should probably start getting ready."

"See you on the ground then," said another, giving the group a nod before falling off of the crane. She righted herself smoothly and headed off towards her platoon's dropship.

One by one, they all departed. Emma eventually just jumped at her dropship, pushing herself along with bursts of wind magic and aeromaneuver, before landing gently on the roof with a flicker of light as she transformed in midair. She jumped again, grabbing the gullwing doors of the dropship and swinging herself down to land in a crouch with a thud.

"Lieutenant," said one of her men, nodding as he walked past with a crate of grenades.

"Corporal," said Emma, returning the greeting with a nod. The dropship was busy, with soldiers running around putting together the final parts for their deployment. Armor was already bolted on and weapons were double, then triple checked. Ammunition was being loaded and strapped to bodies, and customizations were being applied for the coming battle.

Emma made her way slowly through the dropship towards the IFV she would be occupying with her command squad. The chatter between soldiers died as she approached, standing out in her red and white costume. A brief moment of discussion, mutual well wishes, and then Emma moved on. She wished she could do more than that.

Emma came to a stop just before the command IFV. Ingrid was standing in front of it, directing things mentally. With a sigh, Emma steeled herself. Anna was probably right, and even if she wasn't, she needed to clear the air between herself and her Warrant Officer. She had ended their last conversation with a sarcastic snipe, and that simply would not do in combat. Emma stepped forward again.

"Chief Jones," she said, nodding to the now-twice-as-massive soldier as Emma came to a stop in front of her. "I take it things are going well?"

"Yes sir," said Ingrid with a nod. "I took the liberty of procuring a hard suit for your person."

"Thank you Chief," said Emma, looking over the armor. It was a standard vacuum suit, plated over with polycarbide and such before being made, by dint of Emma's magic, to meld with her costume. Not always the most popular supplementary equipment among the girls, but Emma had made a point of wearing one every time she'd done an assault drill during training. Laser burn injuries could easily be mitigated with some training to take advantage of magical girl physiology, but that was a drain on soul gem resources that Emma preferred not to worry about. The armor might restrict her movement a bit, but its other shortcomings were readily overcome.

Emma cleared her throat, banishing the gloves that came with her costume and pulled on one of the armored gauntlets. "Chief, we got off to a bad start," she said, using her best Old Royalty voice. "It's too close to deployment for us to have any long discussions about our relationship, so I just want to say that, while I understand where you're coming from, it's very difficult to work with someone when they're very blunt about your failings."

"…I understand," said Ingrid. "I will attempt to discuss things with you more diplomatically in the future. Shall we let bygones be bygones?"

"Yes," said Emma, pulling on the other gauntlet and clenching her fists to make them fit more comfortably. She turned and offered her hand. "Let's work together and do our best."

Ingrid shook Emma's hand. "Does the armor suit you?"

"Yes, thank you," said Emma, clipping the arm guards onto herself under her costume and tightening the straps that held it in place temporarily. Each segment of armor contained several packets of nanobots and insulating polymer, allowing her to add whatever components she needed.

The two of them stayed silent as Emma continued adding armor components to herself. There was too much latent annoyance and anger for Emma to really feel like talking, and Ingrid was simply busy. After the armor plates were in place and the fibers of the suit had been spun into place, Emma spent a bit of magic to make some aesthetic changes to the surface of the armor, making it clash less with her costume. Being a magical girl had certain perks, after all.

Time spun quickly past as this happened, and Emma was soon sitting in the IFV with Ingrid and the other two members of her command squad, Sergeant Majors Beckett and Han, the latter of which Emma had seen before. As Emma had already started expecting, the two soldiers were relatively quiet, avoiding conversation with her.

"T-minus 63 seconds," said the ship AI. "All units brace for hard deceleration in three, two, one."

Emma grabbed one of the various handholds in the IFV as the transport cruiser pulled hard reverse thrust, slamming out of FTL much faster than normal. With the other hand, Emma grabbed her helmet and pushed it onto her head. Information spilled out into three dimensions at a thought, giving her status updates on the fleet, her platoon, the other platoons in her division, and the army group in general. Personal status, such as percent incapacitated and soul gem level, were planted in the permanent bottom right of her field of vision, and her weapons stores and grief cube count were on the left.

What was more important at the time, however, was the target marker system, networked to every AI available to her TacComp and filtered for relevance to her. At the moment, that meant every single enemy ship that had blinked into the system just minutes before. Emma looked up as their ship angled for entry interface, unable to stem her curiosity.

The whole of her field of vision was red with target indicators.


	8. Trembling Fingertips

_The squids have never attacked with anything less than overwhelming force. Beating them back has always been the nearest thing to impossibility that humanity has attempted. Maybe one day we_ _'_ _ll have the technology to get past that, but for now_ _…_

_\- Major General Akosua Anan, 2nd Magical Division, 3rd Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

_What do you do? You shut up and keep fighting._

_-First Lieutenant Hanako de la Cruz, 21st Regiment, 6th Magical Division, 8th Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

The flight down went unmolested by enemy fire, tied up as the squid were with the Samsaran Home Fleet. Admiral Megan Feldstein, an uncontracted woman, was nevertheless working magic in deep space against the enemy, buying Samsara itself more and more time to get set up for war.

This did not make Emma any less apprehensive as the dropship finished reentry and angled itself towards the city of Helsinberg, located within a valley on the western border of the Kolasi Basin. Helsinberg had first been founded as a stop off on the route between the agricultural regions to Kolasi's west and the industrial facilities of Kolasi's interior and coastline. Set astride a river in a flat, fertile stretch of the valley several kilometers behind the pass to the foothills of the mountains, its position allowed travelers to refill their water tanks and have a bite to eat. Like in the American West millennia ago, service industries quickly sprang up, with trade and other things soon following.

Helsinberg was now a busy commerce and finance center in its region of the planet, profitable in its own right and a steady contributor to the local economy. Its position in the middle of a valley also placed it directly in the path of any cephalopod advance into the Basin to destroy Samsara's ability to continue fighting. This made Helsinberg a key city in the defense of the Kolasi Basin. It was, as much as was possible in the short amount of time available, being turned into a stronghold.

12th Division had been placed in charge of defending the valley, the mountain pass leading to the valley, and the city itself. They were not, however, its first line of defense. Conscription, in the midst of imminent invasion, had provided Helsinberg and the rest of the Basin with the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd Militia Divisions, three quarters of an entire light infantry Corps. Each continent had two or three armies worth of militia, drawn up from the conscription of any physically able person older than eighteen. The sheer magnitude of the force moving towards Samsara made it clear that Samsara's garrison would not be enough to hold the tide. Younger individuals, the infirm, or the possibly useful were moved into either production centers or evacuated into emergency bunkers, since the Home Fleet was unable to provide any escort out of system.

The exception to this evacuation was any magical girl who had contracted relatively recently. They were still being given as much training as possible in time-dilated sims, those who had contracted earlier getting a few more days preparation than those who had contracted the day it became clear that the cephalopods were going to invade Samsara. It wasn't perfect, and it was terribly likely that they would die very quickly, but it would have to do.

The 8th Battalion, as the battalion with the highest number of IFVs, were in charge of ferrying arms and materiel, recently churned out of Kolasi's factories, to the 45th, 46th, and 47th Regiments, who were strengthening the fortifications to Helsinberg's west, north, and south. Each IFV would be accompanied by its soldiers, just in case something happened and manpower was needed. More importantly, it also freed up drones to support moving larger deliveries for the area's heavy defenses and fortifications.

"Chief Jones, what do you think about splitting this workload in half?" asked Emma as she skimmed over the substantial manifest they had been transmitted in midflight. The dropship was making its final approach to land in an empty field to Helsinberg's east. "I've got a few years of logistical training, so it's nothing I can't handle."

Ingrid took a moment to look up Emma's training, then nodded. "This seems reasonable. I will take C and D squad, while you take A and B squad."

"I can work with that," said Emma, breaking the manifest in half and sending the first half to Ingrid. "You complete this part and I'll complete the other."

Ingrid nodded and said no more. Emma fidgeted as she read over her half again. Truth be told, this wasn't something that she relished doing. Logistics was still, ultimately, about moving things around, and it bored her half to death. But it was something that was not sitting around, worrying about the carpet of red overhead that was converging on the planet she was on, so Emma grit her teeth and started planning.

"Alright, A Squad and B Squad, listen up," Emma said into the platoon battlenet after the dropship landed and their vehicles had arrived at their fall back position. "The platoon will be splitting in half to deal with deliveries faster and more efficiently. There's a lot to drop off, so I'll be assigning everyone a number to make it easier to coordinate." There was a second of delay, before each team in the two squads had been subtitled by a number, one through eight. "These are your assignments-," Emma transmitted these from the manifest "-which may or may not have been shuffled around since the manifest was sent to us, so keep me updated on what you have and have not dropped off. Everyone understand?"

Emma received a series of affirmatives from the team leaders.

"Good, I'll see you at the warehouses," said Emma. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got up, jumping down after Ingrid, Beckett, and Han and helping them to unload the equipment they'd brought.

Their fall back position was an elementary school on the southern side of Helsinberg. Three stories tall with a gymnasium/indoor football pitch on the roof, Public School 7S was a fairly new building, erected when the city began to expand very rapidly in response to the economic boom trade and commerce provided. Originally made of cement, it was now faced with ablative sheeting and composite polymers, to give it further strength in case of attack. What struck Emma, however, as she was carrying crates of grenades from the IFV to the classroom she would be staying in, was the disparity between the school, with its relatively modern interior and well maintained facilities, to the grimy, somewhat ill-kept looking streets and residences surrounding it.

"Why are the streets around here so littered with stuff?" Emma asked Sergeant Beckett as they made another trip. "Shouldn't there be people cleaning things?"

"Samsara's not like Earth," said Beckett, hefting the crate up a little higher as he spoke. "It's still run under capitalism and, inevitably, it's started segregating along class 's a pretty big income disparity, especially in a city like Helsinberg that's expanded very rapidly in the last decade or so."

"But why aren't people helping them then?" asked Emma, shocked. "Shouldn't you be making sure that everyone gets pulled up with the economy?"

Beckett snorted. "Yeah, like that'll ever happen."

"What do you mean?"

Beckett sighed. "Earth represents a situation where there is no scarcity of resources, so it's very easy to be generous, especially since allocs don't restrict basic needs. The Samsaran Economy has wide variation of resource availability, and so there is a strong incentive to gather as much as you can for yourself and those who are close to you. It's basic human greed."

Emma considered this. "Then shouldn't Governance- I mean the local government, sorry- be trying to mitigate this?"

"Oh they're just as greedy," said Beckett. "Everyone wants power and money, and they're perfectly okay with screwing someone else over to get it."

"…that's terrible."

"It's life," shrugged Beckett, setting his crate down in the classroom. "I come from a colony further out on the edge of the Samsaran Sphere, before the squid attacked. I was a poor kid, but was able to get into a military track early and managed to find my way off world from there."

"Are your family still there?" asked Emma, setting her crate down beside Beckett's and leaning against it for a short breather.

"They're all dead," said Beckett. "Squid attacks."

"Oh. I'm, uh, I'm sorry."

"Eh, it's been a few years now," said Beckett with a sigh. "I've had my time to mourn. What's our next step?"

Emma glanced over their supply list and checked off the last two crates. "We're done here, so we need to get down to the warehouse district by the river and start loading up."

"I'll meet you outside then, sir," said Beckett, nodding at Emma before departing. Emma watched him go, brow furrowed. It was difficult for her to understand the mindset that went into intentionally forcing others into reduced economic status. It had been part of her basic history and economic studies, of course, but Beckett had been right in saying that Earth was much more equalized, socially and economically. The only way you could have been "poor" in either London or Mitakihara had been if you'd just spent all your allocs for no particular reason, and that was really more a case of bad alloc management. It seemed petty now, the way her family had worried so much about allocs, when they had always been able to live in their apartment comfortably and get food on demand from the synthesizer every day.

She couldn't imagine, remotely, what it must be like to not have that.

With a sigh, Emma got to her feet and made her way back to the street and the playgrounds around the school, where the IFVs had been parked. The play sets and sandboxes had been bulldozed away days earlier to make space. Emma paused as she came to the front doors, seeing a sight she hadn't been expecting. A girl, about her age, was sitting on the steps of the school, looking out over the IFVs sadly.

"Who are you?" asked Emma as she walked up. "Why haven't you- oh."

The girl had turned around at Emma's footsteps, and Emma had caught a flash of magic. A soul gem twisting into ring form.

"Hi," said the girl quietly, turning back to the vehicles.

Emma walked up to her and sat down beside her. "What's your name?" Emma asked.

"Tracy," said the clearly very new magical girl. "You?"

"Emma. What're you doing here?"

"I used to go to school here," said Tracy. "There was a set of monkey bars, just over there-," Tracy pointed at where a group of C Squad IFVs were parked "-that I loved as a kid. Was always climbing around."

"Ah," said Emma. "I know what that's like."

"You do?" asked Tracy, surprised. "Where are you from?"

"I'm from Earth," said Emma, smiling with self-depreciation. "So I guess my experience can't be that bad. But I had this football I'd been playing with since I was four. The day I realized I'd outgrown it was really depressing."

Tracy snorted. "You're right, that's a shit example."

"Well, so much of empathy, right?" said Emma. "When'd you contract?"

"A couple days ago," said Tracy. "I'm taking a break, before they chuck me back into the sims."

Emma took in Tracy's tired, slightly disheveled frame. "Been sleeping well?"

The fresh contractee shook her head. "No."

"Try and get something to help you then," advised Emma, looking away again and standing up.

"Why?" asked Tracy.

"When I was in training, we were told it was best to sleep between sims," said Emma. "I always found it helped the lessons stick."

"Thanks," said Tracy, blinking. "I'll, uh, see if the medical guys can give me something then."

"No problem," said Emma, turning for her IFV. "See you around."

"Bye," called Tracy. Emma waved over her shoulder.

"What took you?" asked Beckett as she pulled herself into the vehicle.

"Just helping out a new recruit," said Emma, closing the door behind her before falling into her seat with a laugh. "Damn, who'd have thought?"

"What?"

"I'm completely green, and I just gave a new contractee advice," said Emma, buckling in as the IFV moved off. "That was completely absurd."

* * *

The warehouse district resembled a madhouse. A well coordinated, smoothly moving madhouse, but a madhouse nonetheless.

"Alright, it looks like there's a pretty substantial wait, so head over to the other side of the river and pick up the goods for 1st Battalion," ordered Emma as she helped Beckett and Han load blocks of ablative armor into their IFV. The material was destined for breakdown by fortification drones, to be extruded onto embankments and concrete barriers on the front. "Team 6, how are you- good, swing around and join Team 3 to get 1st Battalion's gear out to them. The south side's going to be tied up for awhile until this bloody AT Turret gets moved."

"Why is there a fully assembled AT Turret anyway?" grumbled Beckett, shoving a block farther into the vehicle.

"It is destined for defense of the main highway," said Han, pushing another block into the IFV for Beckett to move down. "It is likely easier to assemble it here, then emplace it."

"Every single one of the turrets we've ever used has been assembled on site though," countered Beckett.

"Maybe they don't have enough combat engineers," suggested Han, as Emma passed her another block and went back to retrieve more, still coordinating with the other teams. "On an unrelated note, Beckett, have you been talking to the Lieutenant?"

"Yeah, what of it?" asked Beckett.

"Nothing," said Han with a shrug.

"It's never nothing with you," said Beckett. "You don't talk unless you have a point to make."

"I just think you're setting yourself up for more grief," said Han. "She's not going to last."

"Well aren't you just cheery little miss sunshine," said Beckett with a snort. "There's no harm in teaching her a little about colony life."

"Hn."

"Oh come off it," said Beckett, rolling his eyes behind his faceplate. "We're not going to become friends over something like this."

"I would rather not risk it," said Han. "You remember-."

"This is the last of the blocks," said Emma, dropping a stack of the things beside the IFV and tossing one up to Beckett. "Let's load up and head out."

"Yes sir," said Beckett and Han, helping her put them inside and climbing in. The IFV quickly pulled out of its spot and moved into the long, relatively slow moving line behind the AT Turret.

"So where are you from, Sergeant Han?" asked Emma as they cruised along, searching for a small opening so that they could use the IFV's offroading ability.

"I am from New Hubei, Yangtze Sector," said Han.

"What's it like there?"

Han paused, before saying simply that: "It is nice."

"In what way?"

"It is just nice."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Look, come on, we can have a conversation about this can't we? It's not as if we're going to suddenly become best friends over what your hometown was like."

"…."

Emma turned to Beckett. "Is she always like this?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Yup," said Beckett dryly. "Lady of few words, our Sergeant Han."

Emma sighed. "Right. Well then, how about you Sergeant? What was your hometown like?"

"It was a lot like the area around Public School 7S," said Beckett. "Dirty, unkempt, and scattered with shining jewels that were somebody's pet project for power and wealth. It wasn't a place that you stayed in, you got out as fast as you could."

"It sounds like a difficult place to live."

"It was. Still, there were some good parts. There was a guy on my street who made really good, and I mean Goddess-blessed levels of good, fried skewers. Nobody ever figured out exactly how he got the permit to do a street cart, but we knew he had a daughter."

"Three guesses then," said Emma shaking her head. "Jeez, what a wish."

"Hey, don't look down upon a wish like that," said Beckett. "Especially when he managed to do pretty well for himself. The allocs from his daughter's pay helped a lot too, he and his wife managed to move into some higher level housing after a few months. It worked out for them, so why not make a wish like that?"

"It just seems so… short sighted," said Emma, crossing her legs. "I mean, sure, it worked out this time, but it's not always gonna work out for every girl. How can you be sure of that sort of thing?"

"You can not," said Han. "But it is important to try anyway."

"She speaks!" said Emma with a grin. "Praise the Goddess!"

"But she's got a point," said Beckett. "We all wish for something with all of our heart. Magical girls are lucky, they get to have that wish fulfilled. Us normal people-," he gestured at himself and Han "-have to make do with hard work and blind luck."

Emma frowned and thought about this. She thought about it for the rest of the drive.

* * *

The work continued for the remainder of the day. Emma, just like everyone else, kept checking the updates on her TacComp. As the hours passed, the outlook became increasingly bleak as the fleet's numbers dwindled. Finally, just before the regiment took a breather for dinner, the projections stabilized to about eight hours until cephalopod planet fall. Dinner, therefore, became a rushed affair that nobody had time to enjoy.

Soon enough, they were back at the business of preparing for invasion. Emma found herself needed at the platoon's mustering point more often than not, eventually taking a seat in the gymnasium as the minutes ticked toward planetfall and coordinating the logistics from there while Ingrid took care of the tactical details.

"Alright, Team 7, you're on point for the next escort duty," said Emma, moving around the team assignments on her TacComp's display. "Ah, Team 13, how is D Squad's fuel situation?"

"We got a refuel at the last redoubt," said D Squad's command team leader, the IFVs on the way back a delivery at one of the area's point defense turrets. "We'll need a top off at the mustering point, but we'll be fine."

"Good, I'll put you in to the next slot at the fuel depot," said Emma, gesturing at the relevant slots on her display and flicking to the next task. "Right, Team Fi-." There came a knocking on the doors to the gymnasium, before they opened with a slight creak. "Eh?"

"Uhh, Lieutenant Tracy Geyeller, reporting for duty," said Tracy, shifting side to side awkwardly. She had transformed into her costume of blue and white, trimmed with silver and looking like some sort of naval officer from the 1700s. Behind her was a nervous looking girl wearing a lightly colored dress with a black jacket over top. Tracy gestured at her as she kept talking. "I'm also here with Lieutenant Bridgette Hayer."

Emma blinked at them as they stood before her and saluted. It took her a moment, to really understand what was happening, before she managed to take a deep breath and put on her Football Team Captain face.

"Ah, you're supposed to be my fire support," said Emma, setting her TacComp's details to the side and standing up. "What're your abilities? You first, Tracy."

"Well, cutlasses as far as I can tell," said Tracy, unsheathing said broad, heavy blade from her side and spinning it about. Bridgette edged away. "Other than that, I can't figure anything out."

"Alright, we'll see how that develops," said Emma, folding her arms, before nodding at Bridgette. "And you, Bridgette?"

"Um, j-javelins," said Bridgette, manifesting, and clutching tightly, one of the projectiles into her hands. "T-that's all I've found out."

"Right then," said Emma, sighing thoughtfully as she considered the incredibly raw rookies in front of her. She was really not the right person for this, but it looked like they had been put into her hands, so she would have to do her best. "You're both so new… I think that you'd best stay here."

"Wait, what?" asked Tracy. "Hey now, what the hell are you saying?!"

"Please understand, it's not that I don't think you're competent," said Emma, trying to let Tracy down gently. "It's just that I don't think you're suited to a front line position."

"I-I'm okay with this," said Bridgette, losing some of her nervousness and loosening her grip on her javelin. "I, um, do you want me on the roof then?"

Emma nodded. "The top of the gymnasium has turrets and a parapet now, make sure you stay behind cover."

"I will," said Bridgette, nodding and jogging out of the room. Tracy and Emma were left alone, the former still seething and the latter waiting for her to say something.

"Tch, I don't believe this," said Tracy, looking to the side angrily. "I didn't contract to sit in the back like some freeloader."

"I understand, it's very frustrating," said Emma, rubbing her neck awkwardly. "But, ah, you know I'm not that experienced either, so I'm kinda in the same boat."

"How's that then?" asked Tracy. "Your last example was pretty shitty, should I expect better this time?"

"This platoon's last platoon commander was killed in action a few weeks ago," said Emma. "I'm a replacement, which means I'm not exactly welcome."

Tracy paused. "Okay, that's actually not that bad of an example," she conceded with a sigh. "But why can't I go out onto the line, to hold a redoubt or something? Just sitting here waiting makes me feel so… useless."

Emma sighed and considered. "Let me check with Chief Jones later," she said eventually. "Maybe we can put you into convoy duty, for supply runs."

"Really?" asked Tracy brightening, before scowling again. "Wait, what's the difference between that and guard duty?"

"There's a slightly higher chance of death," said Emma bluntly. "Look, Tracy, you're three days old. Just deal with it for now, yeah?"

"…fine," said Tracy, kicking at the ground unhappily. "I'll go join Bridgette up top for now."

"See you around," said Emma. She waited until Tracy had left hearing range before slumping back onto the crates.

"Goddess," she muttered, rubbing at her temples. "Please, please tell me I didn't behave like that earlier."

Emma's TacComp replied by telling her she had fifteen messages requiring immediate attention.

"Shit, shit, right," said Emma, pulling her interface back and continuing to coordinate the movements of her platoon. "Right, sorry guys, had to deal with our fire support. Team 3, I need you to make a pickup at Warehouse 5…."

* * *

Team three's delivery was among the last that Third Platoon was in charge of. For the last hour before the squids were expected to make planet fall, Third Platoon was able to rest and prepare themselves mentally for the upcoming fight.

The men were quiet as they waited beside their IFVs, the armored vehicles parked into alleys and along side streets, then covered with active camo tarpaulins to prevent them from being bombed. Part of Emma considered going out for a walk, to talk to the men and see how they were doing, but the cautious side of her, prodded into wakefulness by her recent beat down at the hands of the other girls in C Company, kept her in the depths of Public School 7S.

"When we go out, we may need to hold you in the back," Ingrid was saying as she and Emma went over the plans for the defense. "We will probably be responding to embattled light infantry, so it is best if we can open fire from a distance while reinforcing."

"Will we need to worry about counter-fire?" asked Emma. "AT weapons could do serious damage to us."

"Depending on what happens, it's possible," said Ingrid. "The squid aren't known for using particularly unusual strategies, so we can expect a frontal assault of some kind with large numbers designed to overwhelm."

"Will we be able to stop them?"

"Not likely," said Ingrid bluntly. "Our maneuver will facilitate a retreat to a line further back in the defenses, unless we're ordered otherwise."

"Otherwise?"

"Sometimes, heavy infantry is committed to sacrifice itself in a rearguard action," said Ingrid. "If the time comes for us to do so, we will need to be ready for it."

Emma gulped. "I… that's…."

Ingrid nodded. "It is the reality of our situation. You will likely be evacuated, but prepare yourself as best you can for our deaths."

"I… I will," said Emma, nodding. She bit her lip and frowned at the ground as Ingrid walked out and went to attend to some other minor detail.

Ingrid was always so very blunt. It made it difficult for Emma, especially at times like this. There was more than enough stress going around already, why did Ingrid have to add to that?

Rubbing her eyes, Emma quietly made her way out of the room and climbed the steps up to the gymnasium's roof. The only people up there were Bridgette and Tracy, sitting side by side behind the parapet. Overhead, stray debris from the massive space battle streamed down from the sky, burning up in the atmosphere as they tumbled out of space. The crackoom of point defense cannons blasting the larger fragments, incapable of burning up enough to avoid damage in the impact area, thundered over the valley as Emma stepped forward.

"One of you should be on watch," said Emma as she approached the two new girls. Bridgette flinched and jumped to her feet, but Tracy stood more slowly.

"The projections say that we don't need to worry about that for another hour though," said Tracy.

"Paranoia saves lives," said Emma, looking up at the sky. "Why do you think we've got the men spread out already?"

Tracy frowned and looked out over the parapet. "Is it really that serious?" she asked, leaning up on it with her arms. "Training glossed over a lot of things."

"I've been killed at least three dozen times now," said Emma blandly, summoning a halberd to lean against at the parapet. "The most memorable ones are when I was shot through the head by a sniper, gutted by a Shock Trooper, and cut in half by a laser cannon."

Tracy and Bridgette looked horrified.

"Didn't they get that far in the sims?" asked Emma, blinking. "Goddess, you don't even know about…."

"About?" asked Tracy cautiously.

Emma sighed and shook her head. "Alright, look, your TacComps should be operational by now. It'll tell you about your soul gem levels, percent incapacitation, and other stuff. There are some things you need to make sure you remember. First." She turned and pointed her halberd at them. "Your soul gem is your life. Keep an eye on its levels at all times, and retreat if it starts get below 50%. Are we clear?"

Tracy and Bridgette nodded, both instinctively feeling for their soul gems. The real ones, not the decoys.

"Also, stop doing that," said Emma, gesturing at their hands. "That'll just tip off a sniper and get your soul gem shot off and leave you vulnerable."

The girls flinched and pulled their hands back to their sides.

"What else?" asked Tracy.

"Right. Second, your personal defense drones protect you from the enemy's drone compliment," said Emma, tapping her backpack with the haft of her halberd. Her drones flew out and swirled about her, landing onto her shoulders and hair. "They're a little annoying sometimes," she continued, picking one out of her ear, "but they're needed. Keep an eye on them and retreat the moment your compliment gets lower than 50%."

Tracy and Bridgette nodded again. They had their own backpacks, but they had been set aside to be more comfortable. Guiltily, they glanced at each other, then away.

"Third," said Emma, tempted to laugh at their naivety, "never, ever stand still. Keep moving and keep your senses active. Understand?"

Tracy and Bridgette nodded a third time. "We understand," they said quietly, in unison.

"Good," said Emma, sighing and leaning against her halberd again. She turned back to the parapet morosely. "Bloody hell. You two need more time."

The debris overhead continued streaking by as they stood silently, looking out over the suburbs surrounding Public School 7S. The night had gone freakishly quiet, despite the distant thunder of cannons. All light in the city was extinguished, in order to make targeting all the more difficult for the squids. Any light that remained, enhanced by their implants, came from the debris overhead and the light of the stars or Samsara's moons. It was 0147.

"U-um, is that normal?" asked Bridgette, pointing at a piece of debris.

"What about it?" asked Emma, looking up. The three of them waited for a moment, until a cannon round slammed into it. There was a flare of bright purple, only distantly visible even to them.

"…No, that's not normal," said Emma. "Bridgette, call it in."

"R-right," said Bridgette, nodding. "Um, C Company, Third Platoon to Kolasi Unified Command, r-reporting unusual debris falling for grid a-alfa six four."

Emma watched the debris as it fell, following the trajectory output by her TacComp. It was destined to fly far over head, dropping into the sea kilometers away.

"R-right, understood," said Bridgette, before turning to Tracy and Emma. "Um, they say that they're going to send some drones to investigate in flight."

"Hmm. Guys, are you seeing this?" Emma asked over wideband telepathy. She sent the older magical girls a retinal capture of the debris, zoomed in on her implants with relevant data attached.

"Nice catch, new girl," replied Alanis. "That looks really weird."

"Not my catch, thank the new new girl," said Emma blandly. "Say hello Bridgette, Tracy."

"H-hi."

"Hello."

"Ah, well, in any case, it's good to know," said Alanis.

"Yeah, that's not right," added Emily. "That purple could be a Magi Caeli's barrier, but that'd be one hell of a barrier. Most of us can't pull that off."

"We should be alert," said Qing Duo. "Fatima, Mei Ling?"

"We're looking at it now," said Fatima. "KOLUCOM has drones inbound, so we'll see soon enough."

"But, aren't squid energy shields purple?" asked Emma.

"Let's not blow a magical girl out of the sky, yeah?" said Alanis dryly. "Caution, new girl. It's a thing."

Emma rolled her eyes but said nothing. The points of light that represented a pair of combat drones could be seen streaking over head, making high-G turns and matching vectors with the debris.

Seconds later, they vanished in blooms of fire as the debris pitched hard downward, shedding a large chunk that tumbled away. The debris was definitely not debris.

"Shit, that's a drop pod," said Alanis. "Everyone get into cover."

"Shouldn't we move to intercept?" asked Emma. "We can take it out as soon as it hits the ground."

"Fucking- no, we are not going to intercept a multi-ton projectile, dumbass," said Emily derisively. "Get into fucking cover, new girl, so that we can actually respond to the damn attack! Fucking new girls…"

"Well you heard her, let's get inside," said Emma, annoyed as she gestured at Tracy and Bridgette. They hurried down the steps as the point defense cannons redoubled in firing rate, beginning an attempt to annihilate any debris that came in. Other large pieces of debris, thought to be just fragments of destroyed spaceship, also began to pitch down and drop towards the ground with bright flares of light. Some were destroyed under the combined fire of several cannons. Others slipped by, Emma's TacComp lighting up as hundreds, then thousands of drop pods were identified.

"The squid are beginning their assault," Emma announced over the battlenet. "All units, prepare for battle."


	9. Greyhounds in the Slips

_Sometimes, it's difficult to decide whether I hate Airborne Troopers more, or Rangers. Both of them are well trained and both of them are capable of flanking the shit out of you out of Goddess-damned nowhere._

_\- Captain Heather Ichimaru, D Company, 33rd Regiment, 9th Magical Division, 2nd Army Group of the Nile_

* * *

_Combat with squid comes down to two things: fire power and a decent magical girl. Trying to do anything without either is a recipe for massive casualties and no gains._

_-Sergeant Major Kevin Vanderbilt, 17th Regiment, 4th Light Infantry Division, 4th Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

The sheer volume of drop pods, typical for any squid offensive, had overwhelmed the point defense cannons. Then the Airborne Troopers, well armed, well armored, and well trained, had begun overwhelming the defenses. Most of the outer cannons had been disabled, and the Helsinberg perimeter was in serious contention.

More importantly, the stream of supply vehicles had to be halted until the threat of the Airborne had been dealt with. The high mountains surround Kolasi made it difficult for aircraft larger than a small regional jet to operate, so the large, commercial aerodome had been built outside the Basin. Now, the route had been cut off, and critical supplies were no longer being flown to the front. The Basin needed to be reopened as quickly and as permanently as possible.

"You can get back to the roof now," said Ingrid at Bridgette, who had been fiddling with one of her javelins nervously. "Stay under the parapet."

"Y-yes sir," said Bridgette, nodding, leaving for the roof yet again. Emma had the distinct feeling that Bridgette would be running back and forth as the battle shifted.

"Aren't you her subordinate, technically?" asked Tracy to Ingrid.

"Yes."

"And, uh, doesn't that mean that you're not allowed to give her orders, technically?"

"Yes."

"Then-?"

"Because Chief Jones knows more about shooting squid in the face than you and me combined," answered Emma.

"Oh."

It was nearly silent inside the school except for the echo of weapon's fire piercing through the walls. Tracy began pacing.

"We need to get out there," said Tracy eventually.

"Yeah," said Emma, nodding. "But we can't just run around. And you're not going anywhere."

"Grrr…"

"She has a point though," said Emma over mental chat to Ingrid, checking her updates tensely and tapping a foot against the floor. "Why haven't we been given the order to move? The squid have already taken the outer defenses, they're going to overrun us at this rate."

"I suspect KOLUCOM is hoping to draw the squid into a trap," said Ingrid. "As our center gives way, they can send the 12th in to hold it, then 8th Battalion to break the offensive. Using heavier armor runs the risk of destroying the fortifications that the squid took from us, either by stray fire or by the squid suicide bombing the fortifications."

"And the landings in central Allatia?" asked Emma, referring to the continent the Kolasi Basin was part of.

"If we cannot permanently hold the passes and the routes to the aerodomes, then there is no point," said Ingrid. "Better to plan well and destroy this attack, then fight rashly and have to expend more men and resources later for minimal gain."

Emma nodded and stewed. Truth be told, she wanted, like Tracy, to get out there sooner rather than later, but she would wait if she was going to be forced to. Fortunately, she didn't have to wait much longer.

"C Company, mount up," ordered Fatima. "We are to break the enemy offensive with the Battalion at gird marker delta seven six two. 45th Regiment is already committed to hold them, we have five minutes until they will need to fall back."

"Let's go," said Ingrid, standing. Emma followed her, biting back a shiver. Rebecca and Varsha were in 45th Regiment. She hoped they were okay.

"Hey, hey, what about me?" asked Tracy, trailing behind.

"If we need you, I'll give you a call, alright?" said Emma. "Let's hope not though, because it'll mean shit has hit the fan very badly."

Tracy subsided in frustration as the doors of the school swung shut behind Emma and Ingrid.

"The battalion is to attack by company," continued Fatima over battlenet. "We will be handling the left center. Form up in wedge formation, magical girls behind the main spearhead . We open with a barrage, then drive into the enemy ranks. Platoon leaders, you will conduct extermination operations against enemy Airborne troops in coordination with the rest of 8th Battalion. Alanis, you have tactical command."

"Understood," said Alanis. "Qing, we attack under cover of your mirrors. Emily will provide medium range cover, I will provide long range, and Emma will conduct interdiction operations."

"Pretty way to say I'm the bait," said Emma flatly as she and Ingrid climbed into their IFV, along with Beckett and Han, and were immediately heading towards the edge of the city. Around them, the platoon's IFVs were pulling out of hiding and streaming out of their positions. "Please come get me if I get in trouble."

"Don't do something stupid like the time you attacked Qing Duo solo and we'll be cool," said Emily. "You're an idiot, but we're not going to just let you die."

"Thanks, Emily, real up-lifting."

"Hey, you asked for-."

"Quiet down, the two of you," said Alanis with a disapproving growl. "You want to bicker and have angry sex, you can do it off the battlefield."

"I do not want to-!"

"What the fuck are you-!"

"Cut the chatter, C Company," broke in the Division Commander. "You're cluttering the battlenet."

There was a brief embarrassed silence that had Beckett snickering at Emma's blushing visage.

"A-anyway," Emma continued over telepathy as the platoon's vehicles exited the city and grouped into the appropriate formation under VI direction. "Do you want me to take point, Alanis? I can make a lot of noise and then fall back."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Emma. "Vortex spheres are pretty flash and do a decent amount of damage, especially in combination with explosives."

"Keep it tight and keep an eye on your supplies," said Alanis. "Otherwise, then, I think that works. Emily, keep an eye on her and be prepared to yank her out."

"Yeah, yeah," said Emily in a put upon voice. "Fucking babysitting duty…"

"Ass."

"Noob."

"Moving on," sighed Alanis. "Goddess, I've never heard a more unprofessional pre-battle plan."

"Well we wouldn't need one if it weren't for the FNG," said Emily.

"Only because any complicated plan would go right over your head," Emma sniped back.

"Hey-!"

"For the love of the Goddess, shut up, both of you!" Qing Duo mentally shouted.

"Thank you, Qing Duo," said Alanis. "Now, the river is going to be on our right flank. Overall, we'll need to drive the enemy into the river and pin them against A Company's advance. Any shield generators and defense turrets we encounter along the way will need to be taken care of, but those can safely be left to the rest of the division. Understood?"

Emma clicked in her affirmative, taking care not to speak too much and gain Qing Duo's wrath again. She didn't seem like the sort of girl who yelled a lot, unlike Emily, and Emma figured that getting Qing Duo to yell at you was something of an accomplishment.

The plan had been transmitted across the battalion already, so Alanis's speech wasn't entirely necessary. Both the general overview and the specific details had already been transmitted to Emma during the forming up process, but hearing Alanis confirm what Emma already knew was… well, it wasn't comforting, exactly, as a variation of this plan had been in every sim Emma had ever been in, but it followed the romantic expectations behind a battle and lent a degree of order to the oncoming chaos.

As long as there was a plan, things couldn't go too terribly, right?

Silence reigned in their heads as the company formed up. Conversely, the battlenet got increasingly noisy as the number of units in their calculated combat radius increased. Fortunately, the conversation was immediately filtered, Emma's TacComp switching over to TeamComm and DistressComm only .

The formation of IFVs was tightened, the command teams collating into the center while the four platoons formed into a giant wedge. Their autocannon soon opened up, blasting out three-centimeter wide projectiles to defeat enemy shielding in concert with close air support. Impact reports demonstrated wide spread success. It seemed that the counter-thrust would have enough power to avoid committing the heavy armored battalions.

A few more seconds passed, then: "Leading vehicles, brace for impact," said Alanis. "We salute your sacrifice."

"Godspeed, Lieutenants," answered the leader of the wedge.

Emma closed her eyes and cut the connection to the leaders. She couldn't handle listening to them on comms. It was bad enough that she had to watch her display as-

-the leading vehicles sailed over friendly trenches and slammed into the enemy line. The lucky ones smashed into energy shields , the front ends of the vehicles crumpling against the immovable barrier for a moment until the generators failed and the IFVs went skidding to a stop. The soldiers inside had time to escape and engage in close combat immediately, their vehicle's turret still operational and providing suppressing fire as they did their level best to blast away any squid in their path.

The unlucky ones kept going, wheeling to the left and right to arc back towards friendly lines as their guns kept firing. These were quickly picked off by Hydra missile drones, AT missiles designed to rip apart human tanks blasting the much more lightly armored IFVs into so much scrap.

Emma came next. With a nod at Ingrid, Emma blasted upwards out of the turret hatch and spun in midair, casting vortex spheres out in a wide arc of fully automatic wind explosions. Dust and debris were thrown high into the air as she fell, the cutting blades of her magic ripping into the ground and into squids. Those without shielding , shattered perhaps from autocannon rounds or misfortunate enough to be briefly disabled by rifle fire, were torn into pieces as the small storm ripped its way across what part of the battlefield Emma could effect.

The sharp tang of ablative sheeting burning away made Emma twist and bounce off of the air to avoid incoming laser fire. Her armor had taken a hit, a line of blackened ablative shielding revealing the sizzling polycarbide underneath. Combat instincts screamed at her, and Emma was tumbling to the left to hit the ground far harder than was ideal, a missile from a Hydra passing just over head to impact harmlessly against the ground.

Wincing, Emma rolled to her feet and lashed out with a sarissa to bring the Hydra to the ground, followed immediately by flash of magic to knock the next missile careening into a squid position. Laser fire and more missiles converged on her, most deflected or absorbed by Emma's drones, some passing through and scoring lines across her armor. The intensity of fire increased as Emma kept dodging and she suddenly realized that she was far deeper into the enemy lines than was ideal.

Then an explosion and a blast of blue-white light. Emma was thrown sideways and landed with a crunch. Everything hurt, then everything stopped hurting as she reached for her magic and crushed the pain into a ball and threw it away. Emma's TacComp reported damage everywhere, with armor burnt away on her left side and her arm dislocated on the right. Emma needed time to recover, she needed a second to shove her arm back into its socket, but now there were Airborne troopers coming towards her, weapons up and firing, and she needed to get back up and-

-water streamers punched into the Airborne, throwing them back as their shields flared. Emma felt a hand pull her to her feet.

"Fucking new girl!" Emily shouted, directing water into the enemy. "What did I say? What did I fucking say?!"

"Oh shut up!" Emma yelled back, snapping her arm back into its socket before priming a pair of frag grenades and throwing them onto the enemy position.

"Yeah, I'll shut up," said Emily angrily as the grenades went off and the two of them spread out to retreat towards Qing Duo and her mirrors. "I'll shut up when you stop doing shit like this."

Emma bit back a retort and kept running, skidding behind one of Qing Duo's mirrors and bringing a handful of cubes up against her soul gem. It seemed that Emma's distraction had worked, allowing the other three girls in C Company lay complete waste to their area and capture a small pillbox. They all piled in to regroup and plan.

"Good work," said Alanis, recharging her soul gem as Qing Duo kept up constant suppressing fire with an assault rifle through the firing slot. "Time to make the push, you ready to go?"

"Used up a lot of juice just now, give me a sec," said Emma.

"Tch," snorted Emily.

"Oh don't start," said Emma.

"Didn't say anything," said Emily, coolly looking away from Emma.

"Focus, girls," said Alanis reprovingly, flicking her tail idly and squinting at the enemy forces, pulling back in surprisingly good order. "Fatima, can you get…"

Emma glared at Emily briefly before turning her attention to Third Platoon. "Chief Jones," she called out over the platoon's teamcomm, "how did the attack go?"

"We have taken 2 5% casualties , two KIA and ten wounded," reported Ingrid. "Third Platoon is arrayed along sector five-," Emma's TacComp lit up the relevant positions on her map, stretching across a kilometer long arc from the river towards the mountains on the valley's southward side "-and is holding steady with support from the 45th and 9th Militia Division."

"How hot is your area?" asked Emma, requesting a supply truck from the motor pool in the city. "We're about to make an assault, I want to make sure you guys are supplied for the attack."

"The squid have our positions zeroed with mortars," said Ingrid. "But there are no snipers. Something small and fast-."

"I can do it," said Tracy. Emma bit her tongue. Teamcomm was open to anyone in the platoon, so of course Tracy had heard.

"No, you're not," said Ingrid flatly. "You will not enter combat directly at this time."

"Right, I agree," said Tracy, "I've been listening in and it's… it's scary, and I don't want to get hurt. But I can run pretty quick, Bridgette can too. We'll park a truck back behind the 45th, then run the ammo up to you."

Emma turned towards Alanis for help, but then stopped. Tracy and Bridgette were Emma's responsibility, so it ought to be up to her to make a decision. It was a lot like committing a new member of the football team to a semi-critical role: you had to do it at some point, so it was best to do it when it was relatively safe.

"Tracy, are you absolutely confident that you can do this?" asked Emma.

"Yes."

Emma sighed, but made her decision. "Then I think you've got a decent plan that should work. Remember what I told you earlier?"

"Keep moving, keep an eye on my gem, and keep an eye on my drones," said Tracy.

"Good. Bring Bridgette along, she should be fine if she has command mode on. Chief, any objections?"

"None sir," said Ingrid, though she didn't sound happy about it. "Godspeed then, Lieutenants."

"Thank you," said Tracy confidently. "I won't let you down."

Emma clicked back an affirmative and swapped out her display to see Alanis' plan. She and Fatima had evidently been able to coordinate a push with A Company, who had been able to punch slightly further in than C Company. The two companies would converge on the river bank, C Company first, then A Company. Hopefully, the double-bluff of two companies attacking in alternation, along with air support and artillery fire, would be confusing enough to break cohesion and push the squid into the river, to be bombarded at leisure.

"Alright, C Company, prepare to move," said Alanis. "I'll go first, under cover of transformation. Standard blitz, straight down the middle, on my signal."

"Wait, now?" asked Emma.

"Yes, now. We can't give them time to recover," said Alanis.

"But my platoon still needs resupply!"

"That's unfortunate, but we can't wait," said Alanis, flicking an ear unhappily but unmoving from her position. "They will fight to their strengths and conserve ammunition, but we must push now or we'll lose momentum."

Emma bit her lip and looked away. "Alright," she said. She was more worried about Tracy and Bridgette, but she wasn't going to pitch a fit in the middle of battle. She couldn't, there was too much at stake to make this a problem.

"Then we're all clear," said Alanis. "Emily, gimme a boost." With a flash of forest green magic, Alanis shrunk down into a house-cat again. Emily crouched down and offered an arm for Alanis to jump on to, then carried the magical pet to a firing slot. Glancing back and forth cautiously, Alanis slunk forward, close to the ground, and disappeared from sight amongst the debris.

For several minutes, nothing happened. Then a flash of forest green, before several squids were tossed out of a pillbox without their limbs.

Emma was out of the pillbox first, running forward with arms outstretched. Great spinning whirlwinds, damaging but not very much, immediately made her the biggest target on the field. Emma danced left and right as she advanced, slinging vortex spheres and the occasional grenade but never closing to melee. This she left to Qing Duo, who's reflections were smashing apart squids with brutal swiftness, or Emily, who had taken control of the water within the ichor of wounded squids and used it to strangle them. Alanis was flitting back and forth within the enemy positions, alternately a house cat and a tiger, ripping apart a pillbox with tooth and claw before disappearing between rocks and stones.

Behind this vanguard came C Company's human soldiers, advancing leap-frog style across open ground or diving into pillboxes to provide covering fire from light machine guns. As expected, in the face of a direct assault, the squids concentrated their forces by retreating.

Then A Company began their attack, starting with a massive explosion that briefly stilled combat on the southern bank of the river. Emma suspected Rene had done something with one of her teammates in A Company, given the French girl's pyromancy, but put it aside as she continued her duties. It appeared that the squid had bought into the double bluff, sending squads from the South Bank to the North Bank to support the "true offensive". C Company rallied and Emma was once again on point, making noise to divert attention from Alanis and Emily and taking cover in a pillbox or behind Qing Duo's mirrors to recharge. She was running a bit low on cubes, it looked like-

-the squids had realized what was happening and begun a disorganized, but furious, mortar barrage. Emma had to scramble into a pillbox, diving in amongst a jumble of men before the plasma balls could burn her into oblivion.

"Air support, take out those mortars!" Alanis called over the battlenet as enemy fired quickly began to tighten up. "Quickly!"

"We're trying!" a flyer called back, static tinting the non-telepathic message. "They've got them in pillboxes, we can't-!"

The flyer was cut off. Emma peered out of her pillbox for the magical girl's body, biting her lip as she looked for some sign. If they could recover the soul gem….

"Body sighted, tumbling into sector 5-2!" one of the men behind Emma called out. Emma looked over and caught a glimpse of the girl's body before it hit the ground.

"Medical Team 3 is en route," answered one of the division's medics. "Can we get some cover?"

"I'll go," volunteered Emma. "I'm closest-."

"Negative, you concentrate on the attack," said Alanis tensely. "You have men in your pillbox, use them."

Emma blinked, then turned to the soldiers in the pillbox. There were four of them, mixed from Fourth and Third Platoon. "You heard?" asked Emma.

"Yes," answered one of the soldiers. Her name was Sergeant Donnelley, from Emma's platoon, and was the ranking officer. "We'll give MT3 cover, don't worry sir."

"Right," said Emma, turning back from the entryway and taking a deep breath. She could only hope that she wasn't sending them out for nothing. "Godspeed."

"Thank you sir," said Donnelley as the soldiers braced themselves. "You too. Squad, on my mark."

They sprinted out of the pillbox. Emma was left alone with her thoughts. Only briefly though, until-

"C Company, I've got an idea," said Ayane, coming onto the battlenet. "Me and Emma used to do this maneuver in training where I'd toss her at a position and she'd use the momentum to smash through."

"That's ridiculously stupid," said Alanis.

"We used it in sim though," said Emma. "I took out a squadron of armor with it once."

"In what were probably ideal conditions," said Alanis. "No, I am not going to let you do this."

"Well, our other option is bunker busters," said Ayane. "Which aren't ideal, since we'd have to rebuild the fortifications, and it'd take a lot of bombs."

"The scrub's got a point, actually," said one of Ayane's flight mates. "If we try and bomb them to hell, it'll just give the squids more time to regroup. We want them off balance, right?"

"Fuck," said Emily. "This is dumb. You flygirls are dumb. Everything is fucking dumb! We have sights on them, right? Use the fucking artillery! We'll advance under suppressing fire and then take 'em out in melee."

There was a brief pause as they considered this.

"That is a much better plan," said Alanis. "CAS Squadron, maintain your orbit and prepare to drop weapons as the squid are flushed. I'm calling in the artillery now, everyone prepare to advance."

Emma grimaced and got ready. She hadn't really had high hopes for that plan, but it was a pity that the experimentation in training wasn't going to be used. Oh well.

The moment she saw artillery rounds, massive airburst projectiles that sprayed fragments across hundreds of square feet, Emma was running, crossing the open space as quickly as possible and throwing vortex spheres into pillboxes as she went, trusting in Emily or Alanis or Qing Duo or anyone, really, to kill whatever got tossed out in a more permanent manner. Emma jumped over a small trench, used really for nothing more than getting from one pillbox to another, and-

-slammed face first into a rock, breaking several teeth and her nose. A tentacle was wrapped tightly around her ankle, the sizzle of energy shields beginning to heat up her boots. She tried to kick, tried anything to get out of the grip, but the squid was still in the trench and she had no leverage. It took but a second, and then she was thrown bodily into the bottom of the narrow trench, cracking he head against the floor but bringing her hands up instinctively to catch the plasma cutter headed for her neck, slicing off two fingers in the process.

Emma's vision was blurred, she couldn't really see the multi-tentacled thing she was fighting, but she didn't need to this close. Emma kicked upwards, throwing the squid back, and giving her a brief second to try and respond properly. Time dialed down until it moved very, very slowly, her perception snapping into massive over drive as the options were laid out in front of her. She had been trained for this, this was nothing new, she just needed-

-to watch in horror as Tracy appeared out of nowhere, cutlass in hand and hacking off two of the squid's limbs before sweeping upwards to bisect it once, twice, three times and let the pieces fall to the ground.

"Are you alright?!" shouted Tracy, spinning and dropping to her knees beside Emma, hands fluttering in anxiety. "What can I do? What do you need?"

"Cubes, then get out of here!" Emma shouted telepathically. "What the hell are you doing? I told you to-!"

"Make deliveries, and that's what I'm doing," said Tracy, voice trembling as she dropped a handful of grief cubes onto Emma's soul gem, swallowing. "I've made half a dozen runs already and-."

Tracy suddenly fell, eyes wide with shock as the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Emma was on her feet immediately, leaping out of the trench as laser fire tore into the space where she had been. She threw a vortex sphere, punching into an Airborne Trooper and throwing it back into the pillbox that she thought she had cleared. Emma charged, using the momentum of her first attack and slamming the point of her halberd into the squid, before blasting it at point blank with a ripping whirlwind that tore it to pieces.

Emma spun and threw again, vortex sphere whistling pass Tracy's prone but convulsing form to throw back another trooper. Emma ran forward, pulled her arm back, and threw her halberd, the heavy weapon flipping through the air to hack into the squid's face plate and, probably, kill it. That wasn't her priority at the moment though.

"H-help," croaked Tracy as Emma skidded to her. A series of laser burns cut open Tracy's back and her TacComp, leaving her lungs and GI tract open to the air and spilling out onto the ground. "H-help me, Emma! Please! I-I don't want to- I don't want-!"

"You're going to be okay," said Emma, checking Tracy's gem first. It was rapidly coiling with black. "Listen to me, Tracy, you're going-," Emma grabbed Tracy's head and looked her in the eye as the girl writhed "-You are going to be fine! Do you understand me?!"

Tracy nodded, crying from pain and terror as she felt her body shutting down.

"Okay, okay," said Emma, taking deep breaths to stay calm. Tracy's gem was already below twenty percent, there wasn't any time. "Okay, Tracy, you have to trust me. Do you trust me, Tracy?"

Again, Tracy nodded.

"Okay, then, then, close your eyes," said Emma, gripping Tracy's hand tightly. "Close your eyes for me, okay?"

Tracy bit her lip, then closed her eyes tightly. Emma took a deep, steadying breath, put Tracy's soul gem into her backpack, and drew her sidearm. She set it to incendiary, then clicked the safety off and brought it to bear against Tracy's head.

"Emma?" asked Tracy. "Emma, why did you stop talking? Emma? Emma?!"

Emma pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash as the high velocity round first blew away the head, then began to burn. Emma backed away, then pushed a whirlwind into the body, whipping the fire white hot with her magic while tearing the body into pieces for faster incineration.

"New girl, where the fuck are you?" asked Emily over telepathy. "You're not down, that much I can tell, so what the fuck-?"

"Tracy Geyeller is down," reported Emma on the battlenet calmly, flatly, her TacComp kicking her into command mode to keep her from screaming. "I need a medic to collect her soul gem."

The battlenet dropped to complete silence for almost exactly one second.

"Medical Team Seven is inbound," said one of the teams. "Have you secured her body?"

"Negative, the body had to be destroyed," said Emma, breathing deeply as C Company advanced past her.

"What? Why?"

"She was inexperienced and panicking. Her gem was near zero by the time I pulled the trigger."

"Shit, you pulled the trigger yourself?" asked Emily. "Holy fuck, Ne- Emma. I… Goddess."

"Are you going to be alright?" asked Alanis. "Do you need to pull back and take a breather?"

"No, I'll… I'll be okay."

"Alright. Hold your position and keep her gem going. The squid can wait a bit."

Emma clicked affirmative and made her way into the pillbox adjacent. She took a seat beside the remains of the squid she had splattered earlier, along with a pair of machine gunners busy giving suppressive fire.

This, she reflected as she monitored Tracy's soul gem and made sure her backpack was feeding it enough cubes, was where the hero in the old flicks was supposed to light a cigarette. She didn't have any cigarettes, and she didn't feel like looking up what effect nicotine had. She supposed it would have been nice to have one, regardless.

"ETA two minutes," said MT7's leader.

"Acknowledged," Emma said, pulling her legs in towards her and resting her head on top of them. Distantly, it occurred to her that it was a very, very good thing that her TacComp had automatically turned on maximal command mode, or as maximal as could be got at her level. Some vague, isolated part of her was screaming, wanting desperately for Tracy to come back, for this to have never happened, that maybe just one action could have made all the difference.

Every other part of Emma rejected this. With the hormones, drugs, and implants slamming into her brain at the moment, there was nothing that allowed her to feel as if there was anything wrong about what she had done. It was a judgment call, and from the rate of decay of Tracy's gem, and it was probably the right one.

"Medical Team Seven reporting," said MT7's leader, the medic-bodyguard combination ducking into the pillbox. "The gem?"

Emma brought the gem out, hovering now at about 50% and beginning to drop again, and handed it to the magical girl. She couldn't believe it had been two minutes already, but then again, she wasn't exactly completely lucid.

Gently, the medic placed the gem in a padded case, surrounded with grief cubes, and then closed it. The outside was armored with the same material used for soul gem covers, impervious to just about anything except full on artillery. The gem would be safe inside.

"Alright, we'll get this back to the medical facility in Helsinberg as quickly as possible," said the medic.

"Thank you," said Emma, because it felt like that was the appropriate thing to say. "Chief Jones, status report, please."

"Third Platoon is advancing with the rest of the company," reported Ingrid. "Our supplies are holding well, thanks to Lieutenants Geyeller and Hayer. I understand Lieutenant Geyeller is down?"

"Affirmative. Please restructure your offensive to account for this."

"Understood, will comply."

Emma clicked off the battlenet and switched to telepathy: "Alanis, I'm ready to go."

"Good. We're holding a few dozen meters north-," three green dots appeared on Emma's vision, north of her position and relatively near the water "-and keeping the squid suppressed. Can you still provide flash for us?"

Emma evaluated the situation and had her TacComp run a prediction. "Negative, I will be restricted to a melee capacity for the remainder of the offensive. Current emotional fluctuations are unacceptably high."

"Damn," said Alanis. "Alright, stick close to Emily and give her support then. We'll run a Dungeness."

Emma clicked affirmative and ran at speed for Emily's position. The Dungeness Maneuver was named after a type of Earth crab, the key part being the crab's hard shell and snapping claws. Emma's role was to be the jaws of the crab , tearing into anything weakened by Emily's "claws" while protected by Qing Duo's "shell". Alanis would run around shooting things and giving them cover.

"You ready then, Emma?" asked Emily, hunkering behind a pillbox. Emma nodded and summoned a halberd.

"Right then. Qing Duo?"

A phalanx of mirrors bearing reflections appeared about them. Emily led the attack, stepping forward at an easy jog and pushing the water out of her gourd in a wide arc, crashing it against the shields of the squids she could see until they failed and were strangled, drowned, or otherwise killed. Emma helped by flagging any enemies she spotted. It was a fairly straight forward maneuver, with the mirrors and drones blocking most of the incoming fire and Emma and Emily working in concert to hack and smash their way into the enemy.

The soldiers of C Company advanced behind them, sweeping clear the defenses in their path. Still farther behind came the 45th Regiment and the 9th Militia, pushing up and clearing the defenses in totality. All along the front, the Airborne Troopers were being forcibly pried out of their positions and cast back, the charge of the 48th Division Mechanized Battalion having fragmented their line enough for the heavy infantry to create a salient and begin the messy, but relatively easy, business of exterminating the cephalopod presence. In terms of casualties, about 25% of the defenders had taken any hits, but only a quarter of those casualties were fatal. The organized retreat of the Militia, followed by the timely offense of the 45th Regiment and the decisive action of 48th Regiment, 8th Battalion in particular, allowed for a clear victory, reopening the flow of supplies and allowing for the organized withdrawal of many units along the main front deep in Allatia.

This news was delivered via TacComp, along with the order for all human personnel to withdraw and stand by for further orders. A ragged series of cheers could be heard over the battlenet if Emma had been inclined to listen. Instead, she made her way from the battlefield towards a relatively secluded spot by the river, easily visible of looked for, but out of the way and with a certain amount of quiet.

She sat there for a long time, staring out over the water and the corpses, human and squid, that floated down it. It was good news, she decided as she watched a corpse bob along, the news that the attack had been important. That meant that all the deaths were worth something, at least, to the overall objective of "protect humanity". It had to mean something.

Rene found her sitting at the river bank with her legs drawn up, quiet and unmoving as Samsara's sun rose over the mountains. Late stage mopping up operations could be conducted largely autonomously from the platoon commander, with ground drones doing most of the work.

"Emma!" Rene called out, jumping across the river with magic and landing with a small flare. "Emma, how goes? Did combat go well for you today?"

"Rene," said Emma quietly, looking up before nodding in greeting. "Good morning."

"Are… you alright?" asked Rene, sitting down beside Emma.

"I…" Emma blinked as she realized that she hadn't turned off the emotion suppression. She paused, mechanically drawing a set of grief cubes out of her backpack and holding them in the palm of her hand, together with her soul gem.

"Are you still suppressed?" asked Rene. "Emma, that is not healthy."

"I know," said Emma calmly, turning the suppression off with a mental flick. "I j-just turned it-."

Emma stopped again, licking her lips and blinking rapidly as tears pooled in her eyes.

"What is wrong?" asked Rene, moving closer in concern. "Emma, are you sure you are alright?"

"Rene, I… I had to-."

"Wha- hey, hey, it's okay," said Rene, surprised by Emma suddenly grabbing onto her and sobbing uncontrollably into her shoulder. Quickly, Rene scooted closer and wrapped her arms around Emma's shoulders. "Shshsh, it's okay, it's okay."

Emma was crying too hard to respond.


	10. Good and Proper Behaviour

_Why are we being attacked, anyway? Maybe the squid are just pawns in some crazy interstellar political game. That'd be crazy, but it'd make some sort of sense, at least._

_\- Lieutenant Jessica Winterly, 2nd Platoon, D Company, 4th Battalion, 38th Regiment, 10th Assault Cavalry Division, 2nd Army Group of the Nile_

* * *

_With the squid, it's always been wave after wave after wave of infantry. On the one hand, I admire their tenacity. On the other hand, this seems like a really stupid strategy, even if they are kicking our asses._

_-Major General Min-seo Heung, 8th Magical Division, 1st Army Group of the Mekong_

* * *

Like all magical girl outfits, Rene's ballet costume was a beautiful thing to behold. It sparkled with sequins in the morning light, the first rays of dawn glinting off of her as flecks of bright amber and clear gold. This also made it a bit scratchy to wear and to hug. Despite this discomfort, Emma held Rene close as she cried, ignoring the bite of the sequins digging into her cheek.

It took several minutes for Emma to calm down properly. Decompressing from emotional suppression was not unlike being shot full of stimulant medication and then dropping off of the high, and Emma grimaced as she struggled not to be sick into Rene's costume.

"Ah, jeez, you are always weepy after a serious bout of suppression," sighed Rene, rubbing Emma's head consolingly. "Are you going to be alright?"

"It's stupid," mumbled Emma. "I… I wasn't watching, and I got one of the newbies killed."

"Killed?" asked Rene with some trepidation.

"No, like, I had to.. I had to destroy her body, but we saved her gem," reassured Emma. "It's.. I wouldn't say that someone dying was stupid."

"Oh, right, right," said Rene, sighing. "My.. It's just that my teammates are a little… cold-blooded."

"So, yeah, that's that, I guess," said Emma, sniffling and wiping her eyes. "S-sorry for using you as a handkerchief."

"It's fine," said Rene sardonically, patting Emma on the head. "We have all gotten used to it, by now."

"Oh. Wait- hey, I'm not that bad," protested Emma. "I do not fall to pieces every time there's a big fight!"

"Yes, you do," said Rene, helping Emma sit up. "Especially the first time they sent us through the sims. With the tanks?"

"We barely survived the first run through the sims, that doesn't count," countered Emma, hiccuping once and looking away. "Just, shut up, I'm recovering here."

Rene laughed slightly but dutifully shut up, giving Emma the space she needed to pull herself together.

Tracy would be fine. Emma didn't know the details, but all medical centers were equipped to restore a magical girl from her gem. It wasn't a pretty procedure, apparently, but it could be done. There were plenty of girls out there that had made full recoveries. Tracy would even get an award out of it.

She still couldn't shake off the feeling that she was responsible for Tracy's death.

It was irrational and dumb, but there it was. On top of that, Emma knew that she should have been keeping a closer eye on her platoon, and this was a direct consequence of her getting careless and too focused on combat. But there was no point focusing on what had already happened, because she needed to move on and do better, but how could she possibly have forgotten to-?

With a growl Emma whacked herself on the head. Emotions were frustrating.

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Rene, raising an eyebrow.

"It's nothing, really," said Emma, shaking her head. "I- we've done it before, having to, um, to evac someone's gem."

"...I'm not sure I believe you, you are being very vague," said Rene. "And the sim is limited. It is very different doing something in real life."

"Well, there's a reason I was under suppression," said Emma. She breathed in deeply, then slowly let the air out of her lungs. There. She'd managed to make peace with it for now. Emma stood up with a small wobble and waved off Rene's offer of help. "I'm fine, I'm fine. But like I was saying, it's really freaky to do it in real life. But I have a handle on it. It's standard operating procedure, after all."

Rene gave Emma a doubtful look but didn't press the point. "If you say so. Let's get back to the men, we both have duties to attend to."

Their platoons had linked up while Emma had been decompressing. Their IFVs could be seen a few miles east, labeled on their implants as a line of markers, at a bridge across the river where a few squid had attempted and failed to make a stand.

"Lieutenants," greeted Ingrid as Emma and Rene jogged up. "We were just clearing the bridge of mines or traps while we waited."

"Oh, alright then," said Emma, blinking, then nodding. "We turned out okay, in the end?"

"Losses were within expected bounds, and we had access to quick resupply," said Ingrid. "Overall, though, the battalion is down to about fifty percent strength."

"Will we pull reinforcements from the militia?"

"Negative, we would reduce our useful strength with the encumberment," said Ingrid. "There is currently nothing to be done about our numbers, we will need to fight more conservatively and concentrate more deeply."

"Alright, then, uh," Emma began, paused, breathed deeply, then continued. "Then, since we don't have orders otherwise, let's get the platoon back to the school. We should try and rest as much as possible before the next wave. Leave the militia the rest of the work, they have the reinforcements to back them up."

Ingrid nodded. "I was going to suggest the same myself."

"Are you sure about that?" interjected Rene. She was giving Emma a doubtful look. "The Militia aren't as experienced as the Heavy Infantry are, they could run into trouble."

"I'll take that risk," Emma returned, a tad sharply. "I don't want to leave my platoon in a lurch because they haven't decompressed properly."

Rene was unamused. "There is a job to be completed now, though. You cannot leave tasks half-finished."

"The militia will be fine," said Emma firmly. "I don't really see where you're coming from on this."

"It is- oh, forget it," said Rene, shaking her head but waving Emma away. "It is a personal thing, I suppose. It is simply not my style to leave any task unfinished. If you must, go rest your troops."

"I will," said Emma, glancing at Ingrid before nodding. "I'll see you around, Rene."

"Bye, Emma," said Rene, waving as she turned towards the bridge. Emma watched her go for a moment before heading the opposite direction, following Ingrid.

"Was she a friend?" asked Ingrid as she and Emma walked amongst the remains of the platoon, greeting the men and checking up on the wounded who hadn't gone back to the med center yet.

"Yeah," said Emma. "We got paired up often during training. What's up?"

Ingrid hummed. "It's your own business, but you might talk to her about priorities."

"What do you mean?"

"A short academic discussion, to see each others points of view," clarified Ingrid. "I have found it helpful to do so with my fellow commanders in the past. It improves unit cohesion."

Emma was rather dubious. "I'll, uh, take that under consideration. Have you seen Bridgette?"

"She went back to the medical center with some of the more injured," said Ingrid.

"Is she hurt?" asked Emma with alarm.

"Not seriously, she lost part of her arm late in the fighting," said Ingrid. "She'll be fine in a few hours."

Emma bit her lip and nodded. "R-right, that's true. I need to get a few fingers regrown myself, so I'll visit her in a bit. The men are ready to go, we should mount up."

"The vehicle is on it's way," said Ingrid."A Company has been notified of our imminent departure, and a milia platoon is two minutes out."

"Good," said Emma as the IFV roared in and skidded to a halt. "Let's head out then."

* * *

The ride back to Public School 7S was short, and gave Emma a chance to get a detailed update on the men in the platoon. Everyone seemed fine, but the exhaustion levels were high, and Emma was now certain they needed the break before the next attack. After making sure everyone was situated, Emma caught a medical drone back to the medical center.

Naturally, Emma chose to ride on top, and trust in her physiology to keep her safe from harm. It wasn't a very bumpy ride, of course, the suspension being linked to balance the vehicle near-perfectly as it drove. Emma even had a chance to relax, lying on the roof and letting her mind wander until they passed into the city proper.

The streets of Helsinberg were surprisingly packed. While Emma had known that it was impossible to fully evacuate the citizenry, especially given the suddenness of the Cephalopod onslaught, she hadn't really understood what that would look like. While she had been running around helping supply the defensive lines, the people of Helsinberg had secluded themselves into their homes and prepared for the worst. But now that the latest attack had been repulsed, people were up and about taking care of what business they could before they had to hide inside their homes again.

From her position atop the medical drone, Emma could see clearly the income disparity on the streets between the tall towers of sparkling polyglass. The rich and affluent wore sensibly fashionable clothing of distinctly higher quality material. Those of lower income wore clothing no less sensible but much lower in quality, with small nicks and tears that betrayed long use over many years. Governance colonies were obligated to keep all citizens fed and clothed, but the rich cotton-silk blend of the wealthy, closely woven and impregnated with a variety of coatings to give it properties beyond just fabric, was of a completely different nature to the basic psuedocotton that the more frugally obligated wore.

Emma grimaced in distaste. At least the city hadn't descended into chaos like some places had during the Unification Wars. There were stories of armed mobs storming mansions and apartment complexes to pillage the wealthier classes of their goods. It was true that the ideal situation meant that everyone had access to the same protective outerwear in a crisis, but at least there was no need for Emma to lead her platoon into a mob to quell a minor uprising.

The income disparity aside, however, Helsinberg proper was apparently a well off and well constructed city. From what Emma could see on the way to the medical center, the commercial areas of the city were well developed. They probably made a lot more money in a year than she could adequately fathom, not having been in any sort of economics track. The roads and sidewalks were well maintained in this part of the city, with plenty of recessed lamps to stave off crime.

It also turned out, according to the battlenet, that there were very few magical girls in this part of town. There were probably more near the medical center, but the route Emma was taking was largely normal military or civilian in nature. In this respect, riding atop the medical drone was a mistake, as it made it blatantly clear who and what she was. The drone was soon swarmed by a gaggle of children, ranging from a few years older than herself to the very young.

"Ah, hi, hi," said Emma as the drone slammed onto its brakes and went into a crawl to keep from running anyone over. "Hey, sorry, but could you please let me through? Ack, watch out, the little boy — thanks."

The gaggle was completely unresponsive to her request. Embarrassed and unsure of what to do, Emma decided, with a few helpful suggestions from her TacComp, that smiling and waving was probably for the best. This had the unfortunate result of demonstrating that she was missing two fingers and sparked further oohing and aahing and crowding closer to see her.

It seemed Emma would have to hold a small press conference of some kind, in order to get through. At her command, the drone pulled off to the side in order to let the onflow of traffic past,

"Alright, alright, please, one at a time," said Emma, scooting to the side of the vehicle and sitting with her legs dangling over the edge. The crowd of children followed her, opening up the front and letting the medical drone speed up slightly. "Um, hi everyone..."

"I like yur costume!" called one of the children. Emma couldn't see which.

"Thanks," said Emma sheepishly, somewhat self-conscious of the brightly colored ensemble she hadn't untransformed from. She wasn't used to being complimented on her clothing.

"Are you wearin' armor?" asked another.

"Yeah, I added it on after I transformed," said Emma, knocking on an arm guard with a grin. "It's really useful."

"Doesn't your costume come with that sorta thing?" asked someone older than Emma, apparently one of a few chaperones. "Seems kinda dumb for the Incubators not to include armor as part of the package deal."

"Well, you'd think," said Emma, giving her costume a bemused look. "I mean, the chest plate came with it, but I know plenty of girls who don't have any armor. It's kinda weird."

"Oh who cares, it looks cool!" said one of the boys. "Man, girls are so lucky…."

The boy's friend gave him a look. "Ew. You want to wear a dress?"

"Nah, but-" the boy glanced at Emma for his nomenclator to kick in "-Miss Sinclair's got a cool outfit that isn't a dress an' she has magic powers an' stuff!"

"Yah, but still-"

"Where're you from, Miss Sinclair?" asked a girl, shouting out over the brewing argument about whether magic powers were worth the risk of ending up in a dress (or if perhaps the magic overrode dresses in general).

"I'm from Earth," said Emma.

Another round of oohing followed this revelation. The dress argument was derailed.

"What's Earth like?" asked another girl, hopping up and down eagerly. "Is it as big as Helsinberg?"

"Well, I'm from a city on Earth, called Mitakihara-"

"Ooh! Ooh! Do you know Mami-san? She's from Mitakihara, right?"

"Yeah! Or Kyouko? Or Yuma?"

"No, I don't know any of the Mitakihara Four personally," said Emma, laughing a little sheepishly as the collective's face fell. "Sorry, I'm not that cool guys."

"It's okay! What's it like fightin' the squids?" asked a boy enthusiastically, punching the air with childish ferocity. "I bet it's like a whoosh and a bang and a pow and a-!"

"It's a little like that, yeah," said Emma as the kid became distracted fighting imaginary enemies and tripped over himself. "Uh, someone help him up?"

"Beh, Matty'll be fine," said one of the older girls, just a little younger than Emma. "What sorta powers d'you got?"

"I"m a wind mage," said Emma, holding out her uninjured hand and summoning a very weak vortex sphere. The football sized ball was just barely held together. "I can't do much here without risking damaging something, but here, catch."

The girl blanched as the ball sailed towards her. She nstinctively adjusted her stance to catch the vortex sphere atop her head, bouncing it upwards even as the sphere popped with a whoosh of air.

"Molly, you were supposed to catch it!" groaned one of the little girls, tugging at Molly's shirt hem.

"Sorry," said Molly, rubbing her head in mild wonderment. "Was that supposed to happen?"

"Yeah, my magic pops on contact with something else," said Emma. "You play football?"

"Yeah, there's a league for us street rats," said Molly with a grin. "Top of the leaderboard, right here."

"Street rats?" asked Emma.

"Formal name's 'Street Wanderer'. Don't you have those on Earth?" asked Molly.

"No."

"You know, people who're saving money by wandering the streets, 'cause they can handle the exposure?"

Emma shook her head, surprised and a little stunned. "I mean, sure, most of us can do that with implants, but why can't you get a place to live?"

"Beh, who needs an apartment or a house to live in?" asked Molly. "It's not that we can't, it's that we don't care enough. We're happy wandering the streets, right guys?"

The gaggle of children cheered their assent at Molly's assertion. Emma wasn't sure what to make of it.

"And, uh, school?"

"Oh, sure, but it's not like it's ultimately that important, right?" said Molly with a shrug. "Child labor laws don't let us work until we're sixteen anyway, so most've us just muddle our way though."

"I… okay," said Emma, shrugging. Education never really interested her either. "Anyway, what other stuff did you guys wanna ask?"

The small interview session spiraled about for a little longer, with the typical questions that children would ask. Eventually, a good deal of them had run out of things to ask, and were beginning to wander off. To keep the group of children together, the older children began to split off and the group quickly disintegrated. Emma waved goodbye at the last stragglers as her drone lurched forward continued towards the medical center.

What a strange city.

* * *

The medical center was a small hub of activity. Emma jumped off of the drone outside the main doors and made her way past the throngs of military personnel. Missing fingers were a relatively minor wound, especially for a magical girl, and so Emma was placed on the low priority list for treatment.

"I've got a friend who's being treated for a missing arm," said Emma after being forwarded her timeticket digitally. "Can I go visit her while I wait?"

"Affirmative," said the adminitrative VI, its holographic bubble avatar bouncing. "What is the name of the inidivudual you wish to visit?"

"Bridgette Hayer."

"Lieutenant Hayer is on the seventeenth floor, room 7718," said the VI. "Please use the internal transportation systems to reach her room, in order to preserve the cleanliness of the medical center."

Emma took the elevator up to the seventh floor. The elevator projected a pleasing landscape of a Samsaran beach onto the walls as they went. The effect was rather stymied by the doors malfunctioning and not projecting the image at full resolution.

Emma left the elevator and stepped into the sanitation suite for the seventeenth floor. UV rays buzzed across her skin, followed by the disconcerting little cleaner drones that crawled across her to remove debris and other particulate matter. Emma wondered if anyone had taken the opportunity to reprogram the drones to do a particularly deep exfoliation, though it did run the risk of being creepy.

The sanitation process over with, Emma made her way through the exit to the examination rooms. The floor, like all medical areas had been for millenia, was laid out along a large grid. Room 7718 was down one of the center hallways. Emma knocked on the door.

"Come in," said Bridgette.

Emma poked her head in. "Uh, hi Bridgette."

Bridgette breathed in sharply, before doing her best to quell obvious nervousness. "Oh. H-hi, Emma."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"N-nothing."

"You're shaking."

"I am? O-oh."

Emma was confused. Bridgette was clearly trembling underneath the sheets that covered the lower half of her body. The damaged arm was encased in a blue, sterile, plastic mold, generically arm shaped and translucent. It was almost as if she was…

...afraid of Emma.

Unexpectedly, Emma felt a stabbing sensation in her chest. "Bridgette, I'm not going to- I mean, it's okay, you don't need to be-."

"I h-heard what happened to Tr-Tracy," stammered Bridgette, rapidly beginning to tear up. "I c-can't believe that- that you could-!"

"I- it was-," stammered Emma, "Bridgette, she was going to die!"

"B-but you didn't have to burn her!" cried Bridgette, wiping at her eyes with her remaining hand. "N-now there's nothing left even to b-bury!"

"Why does that matter?" asked Emma.

This was not the right thing to say.

"W-why? What do you mean 'why'?!" shouted Bridgette. The running feet of the orderlies could be heard down the hall.

"I- I mean-"

"How could you not even understand?! Go away, I hate you, you-!"

Emma ran.

* * *

Ayane found Emma on the roof.

"Are you okay?" she asked, touching down to Emma's left and stepping forward, biting her lip. "I- the battlenet said you needed to talk to someone, and I was closest."

"Go away," mumbled Emma. She was sitting on the edge of the roof, slumped over and staring down at the streets.

"No," said Ayane. She stopped a few feet back from Emma. "What happened?"

"I said go away," said Emma, shuffling away from Ayane.

Ayane frowned, then jumped with a small burst of magic. Emma started as Ayane fluttered down right next to her.

"I'm not going away," said Ayane, grabbing ahold of Emma's shoulder before she could jump away. Emma let herself be pulled down as Ayane took a seat, swinging her legs over the ledge and letting the cleated boots she wore in her costume clack against the wall. "Emma, you need to talk about this."

Emma gave back only stony silence, staring out over the city. There was a slight breeze.

"You know, it's really odd," said Emma, eventually. "The things they tell us to do in training."

"Like what?" asked Ayane.

"Well, there's the whole don't-worry-it's-just-an-arm thing," said Emma, summoning a vortex sphere and bouncing it up and down with her magic. "And then there's how we're not actually in these bodies, you know?"

Emma manifested her gem into it's bauble form, holding it up in her hand. "If I dropped this, right now…."

"Emma, stop it, you're making me nervous," said Ayane, fingers clenching on the ledge. "Please put your soul gem back on."

"Silly Ayane," Emma said, smiling slightly. "I'm not going to do something like that." Her gem flashed and returned to her body, clipping onto her ear. Emma took it off and tucked it behind her chest plate. It was too bad it was too vulnerable to leave it hanging like that in combat, she looked rather nice with it on.

"I guess you're right though," said Ayane, pulling her braid over her shoulder and fiddling with the end. "When you put it that way, it's a little weird. Technically, you and I could both jump, and so long as we left our gems up here, we'd be fine."

"Fine's not really the way I'd put it," said Emma, arching an eyebrow.

"Well, you didn't go through the combat sims I did during the ride over," said Ayane wryly. "You… get used to dying, somehow. I've lost my body in the sims at least a dozen times."

"I'm sorry," said Emma, a little disturbed.

"Ah, don't be, it was only because I didn't have the experience," said Ayane, smiling away the moment. "You know, you do a immelman 'cause you're scared, but there's two missiles not one, so you have to drop your gem befor, er."

Emma was looking a little green.

"Sorry," said Ayane sheepishly. "The, uh, the point being that it's no big deal, you know?"

"I guess," said Emma, sighing heavily. "But why do I feel so bad about it?"

"Eh? You didn't die though."

"I… some of the new girls, who are kinda talented, are being assigned as extra firepower to the support platoons," said Emma. "I had two."

Ayane looked at Emma out of the corner of her eye. It wasn't entirely obvious, Emma's mood.

"I'm guessing things didn't go well," said Ayane neutrally.

"No, I-" Emma paused and swallowed. "I got one of them badly hurt."

Ayane held her breath and counted to ten. Finally: "Tell me about it?"

"It was stupid," said Emma, sniffing. "I was going through the field and wasn't paying attention and got blindsided somehow. At first it was a grappling fight, so it wasn't that bad, but then one of them came out of nowhere and tried to help me."

"And then?"

"Then another squid shot her in the back. She- she wasn't experienced and she was panicking and-." Emma stopped talking.

Ayane frowned. "Did you… take care of things?"

"What do you think?" snapped Emma. "Of course I did."

"Then what's there to worry about?"

"Because it feels wrong!" Emma shouted. "And because she was my responsibility! I was supposed to take care of her because she's my subordinate, and now-!" Emma stopped and looked away, gritting her teeth angrily. "And now nothing, because she'll be back in a few days and there's nothing to worry about, right?"

"...That's… not true," said Ayane. "I've had to... take care of my teammates before, after they've been shot down in the sim. It's not fun, because the person you've talked to and known is the thing you're destroying. But we have to get used to it eventually, right?"

Emma didn't respond.

"And, because she'll be okay, I think you should take this as a learning experience and move on as best you can," continued Ayane, pulling out a filigreed dagger and turning it about in her hands. "I had to figure that out, quickly."

"Yeah, well, you didn't get yelled at by one teammates for doing the right thing," said Emma bitterly.

"But, isn't your team-?"

"I had two subordinates, now I only have one," said Emma. "And she might apply to transfer, so."

"Oh. This one, she doesn't really get it?"

"No, and now she hates me and is afraid of me."

Ayane pursed her lips, then sighed. "Well, fuck her."

"What?" asked Emma.

"I said: Fuck her," said Ayane, frowning. "She's what, like half a week old?"

"Three days."

"Then fuck her opinion, she doesn't know what she's talking about," said Ayane, shrugging. "We're magical girls. Our bodies are disposable."

"Uhh, I mean, I'm rather attached to my body…"

"Well, you're not in CAS Magi, so there is that," said Ayane, shrugging again. "Don't panic when I lose my body the first time, okay? Just try and get my gem. And if you can't, I don't blame you."

"Ayane…"

"No, seriously," said Ayane, poking Emma in the shoulder. "You got that? The Magi Caeli have the right idea. Our bodies are our vessels, our soul gems are our cockpits. Nothing more and nothing less."

"Do you really believe that?" asked Emma.

Ayane swallowed. "I do." Her voice wavered faintly, but Emma didn't notice.

"Okay then," said Emma, turning away and looking out over the city again. "I guess that makes sense."

Truthfully, Ayane wasn't sure she believe what she said. But Emma had cheered up considerably, so, in the end, it was worth it.


	11. Book Learning

* * *

**Chapter 11: Book Learning**

* * *

_It's kind of interesting, seeing other cultures when you get off of your home world. I once was on station at a place that thought pickled intestine was fantastic. Me, I couldn't stand the stuff._

_-Captain Sun Wu Chen, A Company, 23rd Regiment, 3rd Magical Division, 4th Army Group of the Mekong_

* * *

_I actually studied urban planning before I contracted. It's really annoying, sometimes, when you show up at a place for defense and the streets make no sense whatsoever. It does make defense a little easier though, because the squid are more confused than we are._

_-Lieutenant Colonel Anne Dempsey, 12th Combined Arms Regiment, 7th Magical Division, 9th Army Group of the Euphrates_

* * *

Emma's time ticket for her finger regrowth eventually came up. Ayane needed to get back to her unit, so the two said their goodbyes on the rooftop.

"Stay safe out there," said Emma. She was still not cheerful enough to smile, but was looking much better.

"You too," said Ayane, flicking her braid over her shoulder with a wave. "See you around Emma."

Ayane leaned backwards and dropped off of the hospital. It was a cliched thing to do, but Emma thought it still looked pretty cool.

The regrowth of Emma's fingers went smoothly, aided by a tired and frazzled looking magical girl medic. It occurred to Emma that they were probably running on a few bites of food, relying on magic to keep going. Emma made sure to thank her medic before she left for the motor pool, to catch a ride back to the front.

The motor pool was busy, with vehicles pulling up and leaving in a near continual stream. Emma made her way towards a light reconnaissance drone that was ferrying troops back out to the battlefield.

"Emma!"

Emma pinpointed the shout and brightened. "Rebecca! Varsha!"

Rebecca and Varsha's battalion had been in charge of holding back the attack. It was good to see that they were relatively alright. The latter had a bandage on her left leg. Rebecca supported her on one arm. Both wore their costumes and looked tired, but happy to see Emma.

"The 48th did some good work today," complimented Varsha as Emma jogged up. "Thanks for the support."

"Of course," said Emma with a grin, before sobering and nodding at Varsha's bandaged leg. "What's happened there?"

"Hand cannon got me," said Varsha with a shrug, waving away the injury. Rebecca sniffed unhappily.

"Yeah, that's one way to put it," said Rebecca, giving Varsha a boost onto the drone's top. "Another way to put it would be losing most of your major muscle groups in your leg."

"Well, yes," said Varsha, adjusting the skirt of her dress so that it wouldn't blow up into her face during the ride. The dress was styled in purple and black gothic lolita. Frilly, but tastefully so and not overdone. "Still," she continued, "a couple of drones helped me back to the lines, where I got picked up by medical, so no harm done in the end."

"Just stay safe, please," said Rebecca, hopping onto the drone with a flutter of trailing dress tassels. Her costume was glittery and sequined, dropping straight down from her shoulders. It was accompanied by a feather-tufted headband and silk gloves.

"I.. I will," said Varsha, taking Rebecca's hand and tugging her down. The two of them were now sitting next to each other, holding hands.

Emma raised an eyebrow as she climbed up. "I take it you two figured some things out before the drop?"

"Uh, yeah," said Varsha, nodding with a slight blush. "We did."

Rebecca merely smiled and said nothing. Emma suspected that something more than just "figuring things out" had occurred.

"Well congratulations," she said, sitting down beside Rebecca as a few more girls jumped on. The drone accelerated forwards. As it picked up speed, they switched to telepathy to combat the whistling of the wind. "You two'll be okay, in the field?"

"I think so," said Varsha. "You don't go into this sort of thing not knowing the risks, after all."

"That's good."

They fell silent. On a balcony, a small squad of magical girls looked down upon the convoy of combat and support vehicles. One of the demon control squads, no doubt.

"You know, it's a little sad," said Emma, looking up at the small group and nodding at them. "The new girls contracted so early, and they're already going straight into battle."

"It was like that back in the beginning of the war," said Rebecca with a small sigh. "I knew a girl who contracted. There one day, gone the next. It almost made me refuse the offer."

"Why'd you contract then?"

"Well, I guess it was a bit spur of the moment," said Rebecca with a laugh. "You know how it is, right? You're given a choice, so you take it and run with it."

"I guess," said Emma. Her gaze had wandered off to the left, back in the direction they had come from. "Hm… I guess actually, it was kinda weird. My sister was almost encouraging."

"That is kinda weird," said Rebecca. "D'you know why?"

"Well yeah, Anna was resigned to it and assumed that I'd just do it, even if she didn't want me to," said Emma. "I mean, we basically talked it out, but…."

"Hey, don't over think it," said Varsha. "You're getting support from your family. Be grateful."

"You're right," said Emma, lying back on the drone and stretching. "What about you, Varsha? Why'd you contract?"

"I wasn't going anywhere in my life," said Varsha, shrugging with her free hand. "My colony was a forgotten dump in the ass end of nowhere. A lot of us were planning on just getting jobs in the mines doing whatever, but I saw a chance and I took it."

"Huh. I guess your parents didn't like it much?"

Varsha laughed sardonically. "Yeah, that's one way of putting it. Trying to confiscate my soul gem is another."

"Shit."

"Right?"

"But you got out anyway," said Rebecca. "What'd you do, sneak onto the ship?"

"Actually, yeah," said Varsha. "I couldn't get a ride, so I went out the window ran all the way down. Made it just in time too."

"That's crazy," said Emma, shaking her head. "I don't have all that many friends, but at least mine came out to say goodbye."

"Yeah, well, you Earthers have something called 'free time'," said Varsha. "Out where the economy doesn't provide for your every need, we have this thing called 'working' that we do."

"Oh, shut up," said Emma, grinning in amusement. "We do work too. My friend Ayumi's working in Zeus Research Institute."

"Yeah, but she never had to hold open doors for spending cash," said Rebecca. "Which is what I did. So demeaning…."

Emma shrugged. "Well, we never needed spending cash, so…"

Varsha and Rebecca glanced at each other pointedly. "Our point exactly," they said in unison.

* * *

Emma bade farewell to Varsha and Rebecca when the drone reached a point in its route that was walking distance from Public School 7S. Emma was in no terrible rush, as they weren't likely to be deployed for another twelve hours. Preparations for the next squid attack progressed rapidly, being largely automated. The only question was how many of her troops would be back before the squid hit the lines.

"Emma, welcome back," said Ingrid, sending Emma the message mentally over the battlenet. "I wanted to talk about Bridgette."

Emma's mood darkened immediately. "Did she transfer out?"

"Yes." Ingrid appeared surprised. "You knew?"

"I guessed," said Emma. "We talked."

"It did not go well, I presume."

"No, it didn't," said Emma, climbing the school's front steps. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Fair enough," said Ingrid. "I am working on combat assignments in the command center in the basement. You can come take a look if you wish."

Emma considered. "...Well, I guess I have nothing better to do," she said eventually. "And I did want to learn more."

"I will see you soon then," said Ingrid.

"Yeah, let me grab a drink and a bite to eat," said Emma, turning for the school's cafeteria. "See you soon."

The cafeteria was surprisingly full, with Emma's platoon converging for lunch.

"How's Charlie doing, have you heard at all?" asked one of Emma's corporals from B Squad to another, as they all stood in line for food. The one benefit of a military presence was the availability of vastly greater power generation. Small fusion generators were installed every few kilometers in pillboxes and bunkers or, in this case, in a school. The cafeteria had been equipped with a synthesizer unit and speakers for soothing jazz music. Not that the music helped. But it was a nice touch. "He took a pretty big hit near the end."

"It sounds like he's fine," said the other corporal. "They managed to get him into surgery pretty quickly, so he should be up and about soonish. Maybe just a few days if an MG gets around to healing him up. Did you get the secondary munitions already?"

"Yeah, they're loaded into our IFV," said the first. "You wanted concussion rounds, right?"

"Right, thanks," said the second.

"You're still weird for using them instead of HE rounds," said the first.

"I have my reasons."

"Um, wouldn't concussion rounds be better in CQC?" asked Emma, breaking into the conversation.

"Eh?" The two corporals turned to look at her, neither having noticed her standing behind them in line.

Emma smiled sheepishly. "Er, sorry," said Emma. "I couldn't help but overhear…"

"No, no, it's fine Lieutenant," said the first corporal, who Emma now found out was named Corporal Shun. "I guess you have a point about CQC. Since there's no fragmentation or shock wave, it's a little less dangerous."

"What you're also forgetting is that squid clearly operate on an inertial system for balance," said the second, named Corporal Magnusson. "Disrupt that and you've got an easy kill."

"Vertigo is a bitch, this is true," said Shun. "But we're not going to be fighting at those ranges, so I don't see your point."

"Air strikes, Sunny," said Magnusson. "CAS Magi can lay waste to anything that can't get out of the way. Or our Lieutenant here-," Magnusson gestured at Emma "-and her friends can do something about it. The point is that we don't have to blow them away ourselves, as long as we can set up the kill."

"I'd rather not," said Shun blandly. "Considering that we only have the one Lieutenant. Good work out there, by the way."

"Ah, thanks," said Emma. She could feel herself blushing. "You guys did well too."

"You weren't paying attention to us at all, were you?" asked Magnusson. Emma went more red. "Yup, classic rookie mage."

"Don't make fun of the Lieutenant, Magnusson," said Shun. "She's still your commanding officer, you know."

"Er, right, sorry," said Magnusson. "Hope you weren't offended, Lieutenant."

Emma shook her head, unused to the deference. "No, no it's fine," she said. "I, uh, feel kinda bad about it, actually, so I should be apologizing to you two."

"Don't worry, we can take care of ourselves," said Shun. "You keep your head in the game and let Chief Jones worry about the platoon."

"I will," said Emma with a nod. "You're still part way my responsibility though, so I hope you don't mind if I check up on you whenever I get the chance."

"As long as it doesn't get you hurt," said Shun. Magnusson nodded. "We've dealt with losing one officer, we don't want to deal with it again."

"Alright," said Emma. They was a brief silence, before she spoke again. "Uh, so you guys are B Squad, right? Team 4? How're things looking for you?"

Magnusson shrugged. "There's not much to do but deal with it," he said. "We've got plenty of ammo, but now that we've got just you, it's going to be difficult to access it."

Emma stifled a pang of guilt. "Well, maybe you can piggy back off of some of the incoming units? With the high troop density, there should be some overlap."

"We're hoping for that, yes," said Shun, entering his order into the synthesizer and waiting for it to finish making his meal. "But you learn quickly to never trust a hope, so we've been thinking of contingencies when we get the chance."

"What have you come up with?" asked Emma.

"Well, the standard fall back is to call in CAS while we wait for a drone to send up the ammo," said Magnusson. He stepped up to the synth as Shun transferred his plated food onto a tray. "We should also be able to move between emplacements easily enough, so Chief Jones is supposed to be sending up drones to stock the pillboxes."

"Did we get any bunkers built at the leading edge?" asked Emma.

"Yeah, I think we did," said Shun, leaning against the wall as Magnusson's food was prepared. "Thanks for softening the squid up for us, by the way. Really helpful, since we didn't need to worry about shields as much."

Emma blushed again, but smiled and nodded. "It wasn't a problem, you're welcome." She waited while Magnusson transferred his food to the side and gave her space to place her order.

"Steak and kidney pie?" asked Magnusson, raising an eyebrow at Emma's selection. "What's that from?"

"It's British," said Emma, tapping enter and waiting for the food to be produced. "I'm from London, didn't you notice my accent?"

"Yeah, but that can come from your family, not your origins," said Magnusson. "For example, Shun's got some weird Asian accent-" he jabbed his thumb at the relevant soldier "-but he's actually from Brazil."

"Oh," said Emma. "That's a good point, actually. Where are you from, Magnusson?"

"I'm from Utah," said Magnusson, picking up two forks and handing one to Shun, who thanked him.

"Where's that?" asked Emma, carefully removing the hot pie from the synthesizer and putting it onto a tray.

"It's in the old American Southwest," clarified Magnusson. "Lot's of places to ski, if you're into that."

"I have no idea what that is," said Emma, not bothering to look it up. "Well, mostly no idea. It involves snow, right?"

"What have you been doing with your life?" asked Magnusson, aghast.

"Football, then Logistics," said Emma blandly. "Going from having a life to no life makes it difficult to care about things."

"Where'd you study?" asked Shun, nodding in the direction of an empty table.

"Mitakihara," said Emma, following behind Shun, with Magnusson taking the rear.

"Oh? Interesting place to live?"

"Not really," said Emma, shrugging. "Everyone seems to think I know the Mitakihara Four personally."

Shun huffed in amusement. "Well, maybe people your age and younger. The fandom amongst our age group is much smaller."

Emma nodded. "Makes sense."

"Must get annoying, everyone asking you about it."

"A bit," said Emma, shrugging again as they sat down. She picked up her spoon and plunged it into the pie. "Where are you from in Brazil?"

"Rio de Janeiro," said Shun, mashing a piece of meat on his plate with his fork. The broken up piece was quickly scooped up and consumed. Continuing, he said: "Near the sea, actually. Went to the beach a lot as a kid. I guess you don't really know about surfing either?"

"Nope," said Emma. "I was planning on going into football as a career, so it kind of consumed my life."

"Why'd you go into logistics?" asked Magnusson. "If you liked football so much, seems random to switch out."

"Nobody in Mitakihara plays," said Emma sourly. She blew on a spoonful of pie to cool it. "And my parents were against it. They're in colonial investment, right, so they decided that kids should be going into intellectual things to contribute to the species."

Shun and Magnusson shared a look. "That can't have ended well," said Magnusson.

"Well, I'm here aren't I?" said Emma with a sardonic glance. "You don't exactly contract if you're super happy with life."

"Still, keep in mind that you had it pretty good," said Shun. "Not every girl has the chance to live on Earth. It's pretty luxurious there."

Emma paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth. "I… yeah, that's true," she said eventually. "Sergeant Beckett was telling me earlier about his background. It just seems crazy to me, how someone could decide that others don't deserve the same things as them. Even if it's a capitalist economy, that doesn't mean you can't make things a little more equal."

"Well, think about it though," said Magnusson. "On Earth, you're sitting there with all your things provided for you. In the colonies, that's absolutely impossible, since where is it going to come from? The government has bigger issues to worry about, like keeping people alive, than worrying about whether you have any money for good quality of life."

"Yeah, but here though?" asked Emma, waving her spoon at the walls. "This is a core world, and yet the difference between the poor and the wealthy here is huge. How is that allowed?"

"Of course it's allowed," said Magnusson. "Just because it's a core world doesn't mean that people aren't going to try and take advantage of others whenever possible."

"But why would you even do that though?" asked Emma. "People can be mean, sure but this takes it to a whole new level."

"You underestimate human nature," said Shun. "Rio de Janeiro is now a core city in South America, but it used to have serious issues with income and crime."

"Seriously? I mean, Rio's a big urban center now, right? Covers half the coastline of Brazil?"

"Well, not quite half, but yes," said Shun. "But back in the 20th Century, the city was a lot smaller and divided into multiple parts. There was the main city, which was rich enough for the time, and surrounding it were the favelas. These were little urban sub-sectors, where the quarters were cramped and violent crime was high. The government of Rio de Janeiro had to basically invade its oown city with the military."

"That's insane," said Emma, surprised and a little shocked. "That- what? That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does," said Shun. "You have to have met someone who was a no good back stabbing bitch, right?"

Emma blinked. "Well, yes, actually," she said. "I mean, it was when I was twelve or thirteen though. I would have thought-?"

"-that people would grow out of it?" finished Magnusson. "Hah, no. It gets worse, because people get smarter about it."

"That's horrible," said Emma.

"It's why I joined the military," said Magnusson with a shrug. "Meritocracies have very little room for political bullshit, especially with an enemy like the squid to deal with."

"Same," said Shun. "I used to work in an art studio, producing sculptures, but by the Goddess, the amount of shit I had to deal with."

"Really? In an art studio?" asked Magnusson. "I mean, I was in import controls, so that makes sense, but aren't you guys all out to just do your art thing?"

"Pfft, no," said Shun. "Some of us are, but you've no idea how many artists are in it for the fame. When you don't have to worry about income, you're allowed to be selfish like that."

"My friend just got an internship at Zeus Research Center," said Emma. "Is she going to have to deal with this sort of stuff?"

"Oh, probably," said Magnusson. "Office politics are killer, especially in a competitive research institute like Zeus."

Emma frowned. "I hope she'll be okay."

"Is she contracted?"

"No."

"Then she should be fine," said Magnusson. "She'll get through it and come out stronger, and the next time she'll beat it."

Emma suddenly didn't feel like talking very much anymore. She nodded and busied herself with eating. Magnusson and Shun soon started up another conversation, something about megawatt scale laser beams.

"Well, I'm going to go see what I can learn from Chief Jones," said Emma, after a few minutes of quiet munching. "I'll see you two around."

"See you later Lieutenant," said Magnusson.

"Good luck, and stay safe," added Shun.

"Thanks," said Emma. "See you later."

* * *

Emma spent the next few hours looking over Ingrid's plans. Her TacComp was largely disconnected from the battlenet, so that she could concentrate. The planes were far better than anything Emma would have come up with. Intellectually, Emma was able to comprehend why Ingrid made the decisions she did. The experience gap, however, kept showing how Emma would have missed something there, or forgotten about the hill there, or simply made a poor estimation.

"Ugh," she said finally, flopping forward onto the table tiredly. "My head hurts."

"Studying does that," said Ingrid absently. "The water cooler is over there."

A mental nudge in Emma's perception made her glance in the relevant direction. "Thanks," she said, unslouching and scrubbing at her eyes. "I think I need some fresh air. How do you stay down here like this?"

"I usually do not," said Ingrid as Emma got up. "Most commanders I have worked with were more experienced and did not have a massive invasion force to deal with. Even so, if Lieutenant Adler was still with us, I would be helping."

Emma resisted the urge to snipe at Ingrid while pouring herself a cup of water. She'd gotten herself into a bad position this morning, then gotten one of her subordinates nearly killed. She had no place making tactical suggestions yet.

"What would she do?" Emma asked instead.

Ingrid paused, her face unreadable. "…Lieutenant Adler would play conservatively. She would position the platoon on Hill 63, 51, and 48, and count on the light infantry to provide the bulk of the defense. We would effectively provide fire support, and stay out of the fighting."

Emma paused and reviewed Ingrid's notes. "You have the platoon farther forward than that."

"Yes," said Ingrid. "I disagree with Lieutenant Adler on defense. It is my opinion that the shock value of our platoon is much more useful than our fire support capabilities. The positioning we have allows us to move forward and backward as needed."

"But puts the troops in more danger."

"Somewhat," granted Ingrid. "But the flexibility of the position allows them to retreat as necessary. Unless we are ordered to stand our ground, we should be fine."

Emma frowned, opened her mouth to speak, paused, then reviewed Ingrid's contingencies. The plan Adler would have followed was one of them. "Oh."

Ingrid nodded. "You should go topside. You will need all the rest you can get."

"What about you?"

"I will be fine, I have done this before."

"But you said-?"

"In the Light Infantry, I mean," clarified Ingrid. "Thank you for the concern, but shoo."

Emma sniffed, not entirely believing her, but nodded. "I'll see you later then, Ingrid."

"Good bye, Emma."

* * *

It was mid afternoon. There were ten more hours until the attack was projected to hit. This could change any time, and meant that several retreating Light Infantry and Militia divisions were already making their way into the valley and digging in.

As a result, the school was awash in personnel. A lot of Militia were setting up shop in the area, intending to use the school as a sort of aid-station-slash-stronghold. Emma supposed it made sense, but really, she would have appreciated a heads-up from Ingrid about this.

Dodging soldiers who saluted as they walked past, Emma scrolled through her huge backlog of notifications. Most of it had been coordination requests, taken care of by Ingrid while Emma was studying. The remainder was status updates, including a notice that rain was predicted that evening. More surprising was a call request from Emily.

With nothing better to do, Emma returned the request and waited for Emily to pick up.

"Yo, new girl," said Emily, appearing in a window on Emma's right. "Good, you're back up. Head on over to the football pitch, Alanis wants to do some group training. You should have it on your calendar, but I called you anyway."

"What, no 'hey Emma, how's it going'?" asked Emma, raising an eyebrow as she exited the building and oriented towards the marker on her HUD. "I could be traumatized, you know."

"Yeah yeah, whatever," said Emily. She grinned. "Still, s'good to see you're not completely fucked in the head. Now c'mon, chop chop, we ain't got all day."

She logged out before Emma could retort. Emma was left with an odd taste in her mouth as her boots tapped across the rooftops.

The area around the football pitch was trampled down from the spectators. The pitch itself was scraggly and craggy, the grass dry and beginning to die wholesale. It should have been maintained by the municipal authority, but clearly someone had decided this particular pitch didn't matter.

The other three mages of C Company were gathered around the center of the pitch, transformed and in varying states of boredom. Alanis had managed to amuse herself with juggling arrows, Qing Duo was taking a nap, and Emily appeared ready to try and shoot Alanis' arrows out of the air with a water streamer. Fortunately, Emma forestalled this by calling out the moment she was in sight.

"Emma, hey!" waved Alanis. Her tail swished back and forth as she spun an arrow in her right hand. "Finally, what were you up to?"

"Trying to learn about deploying platoons for combat," said Emma, landing with a small puff of wind. "What's up?"

"Well, I figured we have a few things magically we wanted to work on," said Alanis as Qing Duo blinked awake. "So I figured, why not make it a team building session?"

Emily and Emma glanced at each other, then simultaneously gave Alanis a flat stare. "Seriously?"

"I think it's a good plan. Magic is largely governed by emotion and imagination, after all," said Qing Duo, fluffing her sleeves to get dust off them. "We'll be able to help each other, or use each other as test subjects."

Emma and Emily shared a look again. "I don't like this plan," said Emma.

"For once I agree with the new girl," said Emily, jabbing a thumb in Emma's direction. "I'm kinda afraid of what she'll think up."

"And it's too difficult to concentrate with her being an ass all the time," said Emma at the same time, gesturing at Emily.

"Hey, I can play nice!" protested Emily, poking at Emma with a water streamer. "See, I'm playing nice right now."

Emma was unamused and blew a gust of wind at the streamer. The water spiraled out of control and smacked Emily in the face.

"Yeah, yeah, because you clearly are going to kill each other at this rate," said Alanis with a roll of her eyes. "C'mon, it won't be that bad. Just, go to opposite ends of the field or something. Me n' Qing Duo will stay in the middle."

"Ah, fine," said Emma, heading off to the left. "Have fun."

"Yeah yeah, you too" said Emily, going to the right.

Alanis and Qing Duo stood for a moment, watching them go.

"So you're sure they're not having angry sex?" Alanis asked sotte voce.

"Mostly," said Qing Duo with a raised eyebrow.

"Hm. We should set them up."

"Maybe later."

* * *

Emma sat down with a huff and stared mulishly at a clod of dirt. Emily was still really annoying.

"Pfwah," she sighed, before flopping backwards and staring up at the sky. "Whatever. It could be worse." It was more productive to just get to work.

Emma pulled at her magic, raising her arms and bleeding magic out to saturate the air. A blue corona appeared on her palms, diffusing gently outwards until the space above Emma was tinged a gentle blue.

Emma paused and sniffed the air. It wasn't very humid today, but maybe she could get something to work. Licking her lips, Emma began to move air.

Storms could be generated in a number of ways, the most violent of which occurred in the presence of wind shear and updraft. Emma was not entirely sure how to do this, but she did know it involved pushing air high into the atmosphere and cooling it below the dew point.

Unfortunately, Emma didn't have the power to make it high enough from ground level. What she could do, however, was make winds going in various directions. Before starting, she took a moment to look up a schematic of a cumulonimbus supercell. It appeared she needed to get some sort of swirling thing going, before chilling everything as it was pushed upwards.

It couldn't be that difficult, right?

Lying on her back, Emma started by creating a steady wind going to her right, pulling in air from outside the bubble of magic and pushing it through to the other side. Once this was stable, she started making a stream wind going from her head towards her feet. The two spinning winds formed a horizontal vortex. Then she pushed, sending the spinning wind spiraling upwards. The key now was to somehow cool the top of the magic cloud as the wind swept through.

Emma blinked as she realized she hadn't particularly thought this part through. Well, magic was linked to her imagination, right? Poets always described wind as being particularly cold, so maybe…?

There was a perceptible change in temperature at the top of Emma's magic cloud. She couldn't feel it, of course, but someone with a thermometer could measure it. The temperature dropped, quickly going below freezing and forming a haze of water vapor. Emma held her hands in place, pushing her magic to go faster and colder. The incoming air moved rapidly to the top of the growing fog bank, rolling and tumbling and…

...turning into a cute, puffy, white cloud.

"Dammit," said Emma, letting her hands drop with a sigh. The cloud drifted away, dissipating as it heated back past the dew point. It was funny, she could pull off a tornado easily enough, but making anything else even vaguely dangerous was apparently beyond her.

"You alright?" asked Alanis telepathically. Emma glanced over.

"I'm fine, just annoyed," said Emma, watching as Alanis fired five arrows into the air in quick succession, then stared at them very hard. Nothing happened for several seconds, before each arrow fizzled, then lit onto dark green fire.

"Well, at least that was useful," Alanis said as she dismissed the arrows. She turned back to Emma "You had something pretty powerful going there."

"If you call blowing hot air powerful," said Emma. She got up and manifested a vortex sphere, bouncing it on one foot. "I'm having trouble forming storm clouds."

"Can't you make a tornado though?" asked Alanis, pulling out another set of arrows and letting fly.

"That's the irony of it, isn't it?" asked Emma, spinning and kicking her sphere into the air. She dismissed it before it hit anything.

Alanis paused as she stared hard at the arrows again. This time they popped with a bang, startling Qing Duo and Emily. "Eh, well, wind things," said Alanis as she waved sheepishly at their flustered team mates. "I don't understand weather, so there's that. Why don't you try learning more?"

"About cloud formation?"

"No, weather."

"What the science behind it?"

"Sure, what's the harm?" asked Alanis. "I mean, at worst you'll make yourself into a mage who can dick around with weather patterns, which is pretty amazing in and of itself. If you're lucky, you'll find out some way to summon hurricanes!"

Emma frowned. This did not appeal to her, but she couldn't think of a better idea. With a sigh, she said:

"Ugh, more studying."


	12. Application of Theory

_Advice? Shit, um. I guess the most important thing is to never underestimate the amount of work that goes into developing your powers. Any mage can accomplish awesome shit, but that takes effort and time._

_-First Lieutenant Michelle Kramer, D Company, 7th Regiment, 2nd Magical Division, First Army Group of the Mekong_

* * *

_Dinner is usually a rare private moment for me. A lot of my day is spent managing a fleet, after all, so I'm always accompanied by someone or going to speak to someone. It gets stressful, quickly, but a nice dinner alone in my quarters, possibly with a glass of wine, is helpful for this._

_-Rear Admiral Karen Liu, 2nd Carrier Squadron, 1st Fleet of the Nile_

* * *

An hour and a half later, Emma had come up with something resembling a plan.

It only resembled a plan largely because Emma wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to do in the end. At some level, she wanted to make a huge storm. Most of this was because she thought it would be _fantastically_ cool. The more down-to-earth reason was because she figured it would provide good fundamental skills for… something.

The point was, a huge, complicated phenomenon like a storm needed a lot of individual steps to accomplish. These steps could be mashed together later in interesting ways. The schematic she had looked up earlier was useful for this. It clearly showed that she needed to make, at minimum, very large wind currents.

The other reason it only resembled a plan was because planning was tedious and boring. Emma had gotten enough of that in school. But she'd managed a tornado the last time she'd forced herself to sit through the process, so she grudgingly planned something anyway. It also helped to convince the others that, yes, this was actually potentially useful, and no, she wasn't going to do something incredibly stupid.

...In hindsight it would probably have been a good idea to do some planning before even making an attempt at clouds.

In any case, Emma was currently working on her own. This didn't mean that she was unsupervised. The others were definitely keeping an eye on her, despite having their own things to do. It would be a waste of time to stare at her all day, but it was just irresponsible not to make sure Emma didn't kill herself accidentally.

Emma took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The first thing she needed to do was get a strong, but efficient, jet of air going. The way her powers worked, Emma should be able to create an isolated stream of air moving faster than everything around it. The way she figured, this was easiest done looping the air around her body, then progressively increasing the scale.

Emma started small, making a pocket of magic directly in front of her and letting it form the anchor for a low pressure zone. Air rushed in from all sides, colliding chaotically and beginning to compress into a rudimentary vortex sphere. Emma pulled at the zone's side, forcing the low pressure to extend outwards.

Air rushed towards this elongated region as well, but Emma stayed one step ahead. As she pulled on one end, she let the other side flare, then tighten into a sort of buffer-tube-thing. Air could still move towards the low pressure zone, but its movement was constrained by the opening at the end of the tube. By turning as she pulled, Emma created a hoop of mildly gusty wind, moving quickly enough but hardly damaging.

Carefully, very carefully, Emma moved the low pressure zone around her with increasing speed. The buffer wasn't completely sealed and allowed some air in. As the speed increased, more and more air was inevitably sucked into the tube. Emma grit her teeth as the pressure inside of the tube increased, closing swiftly on the limits of Emma's ability to control it.

The air inside the tube was now moving very quickly, reaching speeds that would make traditional, non-magical physics begin to get very complicated. Fortunately, magic took care of many problems. The magical shell bubbled and stretched, but managed to keep the increasingly dense stream of air contained, for now.

Emma decided that the safest way to bleed off all this fast moving air would be to eject it as a circular air blade, keeping the air moving nicely away from her body. She paused to glance around, making sure that none of the others were too close. The entire group had cautiously moved off to the left, staying well clear but ready to move if needed.

Emma took a deep breath. Making an air blade was not complicated. She made two high pressure wedges above and below the—

—popping tube, the shift in concentration letting a bubble of air escape. The small fault in the pressure vessel caused a catastrophic collapse, magic flailing wildly in all directions. The majority of the air dissipated harmlessly, but the residual magic snagged some of the air before Emma could kill the spell.

Emma instinctively shielded her face as her magic turned against her, lashing at her body with lines of super-compressed air. Fortunately, the armor she was still wearing protected her from the worst of this damage. One particularly powerful stream of air cut a long wedge from an arm guard.

"Shit," Emma muttered to herself, after the wind had died down. "That's not gone well."

"You okay there?" Alanis asked.

"Yeah," said Emma, brushing herself off. "Armor's kinda nicked up, but I'm good."

"What happened?" asked Alanis.

"Got it going too fast," said Emma. "Just need to try again and ramp it up slower."

"Try twisting it," interjected Emily.

Emma blinked. "What do you mean?"

"You were making a tube-thing, right?" said Emily. She held up a streamer of water and slowly moved it around her head, demonstrating the twisting motion she was talking about. Emma zoomed in to watch. "It's a trick I figured out trying to control my streamers. When you make your air streamer, pull the magic out into a corkscrew."

"Oh," said Emma, blinking and re-watching the recording at 1/4 speed. "Um, thanks, Emily."

"Sure, whatever." Emily went back to staring at her puddle and ignoring Alanis and Qing Duo. The latter two were giving her very odd looks.

"Er, right," said Emma, turning away again and licking her lips. She pulled at her magic again, starting with a low pressure zone and elongating it like before. As she pulled at the one end, Emma twisted it, making the flaring end spiral outwards and—

—dissipate into the air, it's chaotic motion difficult for Emma to hold onto. At first she would have a decent grip on the shell. After all, this was no different from twisting a pipe. But as the shell flared, it got wider. Since it was spinning, this meant that it got faster. As the shell sped up, it got… Emma could only call it "slippery". The moment she tried to make it form the barrier she'd used before, the magic would slip from her grasp and dissipate. Bits of air were sucked along with it and crackled as they half-formed vortex spheres.

"No, you have to constrict the flaring too," said Emily. She sent a mental video over, showing what she was doing. "See, if you hold it here—," a pointed appeared on the video "—you end up keeping the tube tight and narrow, which helps control."

"But I want it to be a large, wide jet of air," said Emma.

"Start small, Emma," said Emily. "Get a narrow jet figured, and then move up in scale."

"But—?"

"It's sensible advice," added Qing Duo. "Most powers take a lot more time than you expect. You have to be patient."

"Mrgl," grunted Emma, before returning to her task.

Alanis glanced at Emily. "You're awful chatty with the new girl today."

Emily rolled her eyes. "I'm not so much of an asshole that I'm going to not give her advice."

"But you didn't even insult her this time," added Qing Duo, summoning a mirror. She seemed to flicker, before frowning unhappily.

"Hey, I'm allowed to be in a good mood," said Emily.

"I wasn't aware that was possible," said Qing Duo bluntly.

"It is if my experiments are going well," said Emily, staring at a spot on the ground. Seconds later, a puddle appeared.

"What are you doing anyway?" asked Alanis. "Is it condensation or what?"

"No, there's not enough humidity to condense water out of the air," said Emily, waving off the idea. "Or at least, I don't have the juice to pull that off. I'm pulling water up from the water table. Since we're so close to a river, the water table isn't that far down. I'm hoping it'll let me be more flexible."

"In any case, the new girl."

"Yeah? I'm in a good mood, so I helped her out nicely," said Emily, glancing between Alanis and Qing Duo with a questioning expression. "There's nothing weird about that."

"No, no there isn't," said Alanis, turning away quickly to hide a grin. "It's just… interesting."

Emily wrinkled her nose. "What do you mean inter- oh hell no!"

"I didn't say anything~!"

"You are not shipping me with her!"

"Aww, you'd make a cute couple though!"

"No, no, no, shut up no!"

"I thought that was a joke?" asked Qing Duo.

"Well it was, but then this happened," said Alanis. "Don't tell me you can't see it. They even have the same hair!"

"That'd make them more sisters than anything else," said Qing Duo blandly.

"That's it, I'm growing this out more," said Emily, glaring at her bangs.

"Don't do that, Ems," said Alanis. "I'm just teasing you, it's not really a thing."

Emily gave Alanis a distrustful glare.

"Seriously," said Alanis. "To quote you earlier, I'm not that much of an asshole."

"Hmph. Anyway—."

The group flinched as another bang was heard from Emma's direction.

"Agh, ow ow ow!" gasped Emma, clutching at her arm. It was a deep cut, down to the bone, but healing quickly.

"Heh, well, that's clearly not gone well," remarked Emily.

"Go ahead and fuck yourself!" hissed Emma. "Ah, dammit, ow…."

Emily rolled her eyes and turned back to her puddles. She paused, then looked up when she felt two pairs of eyes on her. "What?"

"You should go help her," said Qing Duo.

"What? Why?"

"You're the only one here with experience in fluids."

"But—."

"We do have a duty, Emily," said Alanis. "Don't you remember when you first contracted?"

Emily pressed her lips together unhappily. "…Fine." She sighed, and walked over to where Emma was experimentally flexing her fingers.

"You feeling alright there?" asked Emily.

"M'fine, just surprised," said Emma, prodding carefully at the wound. "Wasn't that bad."

"Fair 'nuff," said Emily, shrugging. "Lemme see what you're doing."

"I'm healing myself."

"No, stupid, the magic," said Emily. "You need help. I'm offering it."

"You're offering to help me?" asked Emma, surprised.

"I'm in a good mood," said Emily, rolling her eyes again. "Hurry up, or you're going to ruin it."

"Oh, uh, right," said Emma, forming a fist to test her grip before starting again. Her magic glittered briefly before forming into a ball. With one hand, she grabbed at the area and began pulling, stretching out to the left—

—before Emily stopped her. "Start by getting it twisting," said Emily. She pulled a ball of water out in front of her to demonstrate. "See, get a good flow going first."

"Alright, hold on," said Emma, pulling the magic back into its ball. The air began spinning as she focused on the sphere, rolling away from her. With the ball now spinning rapidly, Emma began to pull the tube out again—

—before Emily stopped her again. "No, no, hold on, is it spinning or twisting?"

"What's the difference?" asked Emma, slightly annoyed.

"What do you mean? Of course there's a difference."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Look, it's not that complicated," said Emily, demonstrating with her ball of water. "If it's spinning, everything is moving at the same speed at the same time. If it's twisting, then it's moving at the same speed but at different times."

"…I don't really get it, but whatever. Show me again?"

Carefully, Emma followed along as Emily demonstrated again. The left side of the sphere of air began spinning first, followed by the rest of it in layers. It was a tricky business at first, but Emma was able to pick it up quickly.

"Alright, now make it go a little faster," said Emily. "Keep it tight— right, good."

"And now you're complimenting me," said Emma, snorting in surprise. "Will the wonders never cease?"

"That doesn't count as a compliment," said Emily. "Keep going… alright, now you're going fast enough. Keep everything tight now…"

Emma bit her lip and pulled outwards again. The twisting magic wobbled as it stretched outwards, the air inside wanting to scatter into the atmosphere. Emma resisted this notion, holding the tube together as she swung it around herself, then linked the ends.

"Now reinforce it," said Emily. "Don't get speed going, make sure everything holds together."

"Right." Emma slowly fed more magic into the technique. The spiraling tube slowly stabilized until it was flowing in an even hoop and glowed a crisp, light blue.

"Now hold it," said Emily, stepping back. "When you're ready, give it more speed."

Emma nodded and widened her stance. The air stream hummed slightly as Emma moved it more quickly. It was surprisingly quiet.

"I… I don't think I can get it any faster," said Emma, carefully blinking away a droplet of sweat.

"Hold it steady…" said Emily, backing away still more. "…Okay, you're looking good. Now try moving it."

"Huh?"

"Like, uh,wobble it from side to side," said Emily. She pulled out a ring of water and rocked it back and forth. "Like this, see? Can you pull it off?"

"Uh, maybe," said Emma. She slowly gestured to her right, tilting the ring of air with some difficulty. "It— ah!— it doesn't want to move."

Emily blinked and thought about this. "…Oh, I think I get it. My magic touches water molecules directly. Yours must not do that."

"No, it's basically a pressure thing," said Emma, still slowly, carefully tilting the air stream.

"Right, uh, what happens if you infuse the air with your magic?"

"It turns into that cutting whirlwind I keep using," said Emma, beginning to tilt the loop the other direction. It was a little easier this time, until she went past center.

"Maybe—?"

Emma shook her head. "If I lose control of this, I'll be shredded."

"Right, right, uh… well I've got nothing."

"Yay."

Emily thought for a moment. "Oi, Qing Duo, can you magic up a target for Emma?"

"Will a reflection do?"

"Should be fine," said Emily. "Right, Emma, since we've got nothing better to do—."

"You want me punch Qing Duo's reflection in the face with my air jet, right?" asked Emma, bracing herself as a mirror shimmered into place ten yards distant. Qing Duo's reflection stepped out and waved.

"Yeah, just let me get back a bit," said Emily. She hopped back a few more yards and readied a magic shield. "Whenever you're ready."

Emma took a deep breath. The air jet flared as she reverted to type, pouring magic into it before she punched forward and sent the pressure zone forward. Sound ripped out of the jet, screaming in anger and ripping into the reflection, then the mirror beyond.

The immediate impact area was immediately obscured by a cloud of dust, completely opaque. It was as if the ground was hanging in the air, before slowly dissipating from a breeze.

Emily whistled. "Damn, that is one hell of an attack, Emma."

The reflection had faded into light motes on impact, leaving most of the force to blast itself against the mirror. Magically constructed, Qing Duo's mirror was completely unfazed by the attack. What was more interesting was the half-bowl cleanly scooped out of the football pitch, like the hole left in the ice cream tub from a skillfully done scoop.

"Ehehe," said Emma. "I guess I accidentally did the whirlwind thing."

"While risky, it does have its rewards," said Alanis from afar. She and Qing Duo jogged over to inspect the cut. "Oh damn, look at that. Smooth as glass."

"Do you think there was any heat residue?"

"Can't tell, we could go over the video…"

Emma took a deep breath and sat down. Guh, she was so tired. Just the one attack had taken so much out of here, and there was still so much more to do. Would she ever manage to make the storm she wanted? Maybe it would be easier to just give up. She had a good thing going, after all, so if she concentrated on this…

Emily sat down beside her and tossed a handful of grief cubes into Emma's lap. "Here, you gem needs purifying."

Emma blinked and checked. With a start, she realized her soul gem was well below fifty percent. "Shit."

"Keep a closer eye on it," said Emily, leaning back on her elbows as Emma scrambled to drain the grief out of her gem. "You're no good if you fade."

"Y-yeah."

Emily pulled a blob of water into the air and slowly broke it into droplets. "You feeling hot?"

"Yeah."

"Here." Emily slid the water over to hover in front of Emma. "Feel free to splash your face, if you want."

Emma blinked at the water droplets, then dunked her face into them. "Hahh… thanks. That's refreshing."

"S'cool."

The two were silent for a while, watching Alanis and Qing Duo poke at the crater Emma'd left behind.

"We're not fighting," said Emma eventually.

"Mmhm."

"Why haven't you teased me in the last thirty seconds?"

"Why should I?"

"I'm the new girl, aren't I?"

"Yeah."

"Aren't I supposed to be stupid and idiotic?"

"Sure," said Emily. "But you pulled off something interesting." She nodded at the crater. "And 'sides, you made it through the first engagement almost without a scratch. You kept your shit together and you're doing your best to improve yourself. If I didn't respect that, I'd be the bitch here, and I'd rather not be."

"You already are a bitch."

"Asshole, Emma," corrected Emily. "I'm an asshole, not a bitch. There's a distinction."

"Whatever," said Emma, looking away. She couldn't resist a small smile. "…You're alright, Emily."

"Heh. You too, new girl."

* * *

The rest of the afternoon was spent refining the technique. There were a variety of other magical hurdles that still needed to be leaped, but Emma was now sure she could overcome them.

The air jet needed to be larger, in any case. Emma made it wider and faster, progressing slowly but steadily until the jet was as thick as her waist. On the one hand, she thought her waist was rather a pleasing thinness without getting mildly disturbing about it. On the other hand, this was still at least two orders of magnitude smaller than what she was aiming for.

Ah well. Best make it through the coming engagement and work on it later, right?

"Exactly," said Alanis, purring happily as Emma gave her cat form a post-training ear scratching. All four magical girls were sitting on the bleachers, having a snack before heading back to their units. "You need to— ooh, a little further left— to make sure you keep at it, instead of hoping for some miracle from the Goddess."

"Besides, it's not like whipping up a storm on the battlefield is always useful," said Emily, drawing a steady stream of water from the ground into her gourd. Her training was paying significant dividends. "It's one of those abilities, y'know? Like, uh, Homura's—."

Qing Duo flicked her upside the head. "Akemi-san."

"—Akemi-san's wings or whatever," continued Emily, rolling her eyes at Qing Duo. "It's a special application."

"It's good to have high goals," said Qing Duo.

"But it's better to know what your limits are," said Emily.

The two stared at each other for a moment.

"Fair enough," said Qing Duo airily. "Your point is valid. I disagree on principal, however."

"Meh."

Emma changed the topic. "So, I've been looking at our deployment plans, during breaks," she said. "I uh, it seems like C Company is doing the usual thing? Being a reactionary reserve, I mean."

Alanis nodded mentally. "That's the basic plan so far. The 12th's being placed on a reserve footing, since it's numbers are so depleted. We're relying on the militia and the light infantry to hold the line."

"If they don't hold the line though, I guess we're expected to plug the gap until reinforcements come up?"

"That would probably be the case, yes," said Alanis. "There's plenty of troops in reserve, seeing as the valley's pretty narrow for an entire field army."

"Yeah," said Emma. She continued scratching Alanis' ears, staring thoughtfully at the ground.

"What're you thinking about?" asked Emily.

"Just how we factor into the big picture," said Emma. "I guess, it's counter-intuitive to me, to deploy my forces forward."

Qing Duo nodded. "This isn't perfectly like football."

"Yeah. If I knew that my opponents were the sort to go charging in, I'd do a defensive posture."

"But here we've got allies."

"Uh huh, so we can afford to deploy forward, because we can always fall back."

"Well, be careful," warned Emily. "Don't leave gaps in your line when you do that."

"I know," said Emma. "I uh, I've done that before in the sims. It wasn't pretty."

"Well then good, you know not to."

"Make sure to keep your head in the game," added Qing Duo. "You handled yourself well last time. Keep it up."

"Stay in contact too," said Alanis, bunting aside Emma's hand momentarily to look seriously up at her. "The last thing we need is for your transmitter to drop out in the middle of the battle."

"I'll, ah, I'll do my best," said Emma. "What, uh, what now?"

"Well, we've still got a few hours before we need to move out," said Alanis. She hopped down from Emma's lap. "We should spend that time resting up, grab some dinner."

"Attack's at, what, 20:00?" asked Emily. "Bit of time, it seems."

"Yeah, we can't rely on that though."

"Whatever," said Emily, getting up and stretching. "Ngh. We'll just be waiting at our positions. Doesn't mean we can't talk over transmitter or telepathy."

"In that case, I'll talk to you guys later," said Emma, standing as well and bracing to jump.

"…What are you doing?" asked Qing Duo. Emily and Alanis edged behind her.

"I'm going to try and fly," said Emma. She flashed a grin at the others. "Wish me—gack!"

Emily had grabbed her by the ankle and tugged. "No," said Emily, whapping Emma upside the head. Gently, but it still stung. "Don't do something stupid that could get your neck snapped. If you're going to try that, try it in a sim where we can at least sorta simulate it."

Emma scowled but conceded the point. "Fine…."

* * *

Dinner was postponed until after their platoons had deployed to their starting positions. Ingrid had already laid out most of the positioning for 3rd Platoon, so it was really just a question of getting there and setting up.

3rd Platoon was deployed on a series of hills near the main infantry line. This series was dubbed Cluster 14. The cluster was arranged in two rows, one of three and one of two, with the highest peak in the center of the first row. It ran mostly in parallel to the main line, varying only slightly and breaking into volcanic stone after about fifty meters up any one hill. The cluster was three hundred meters tall at its highest and gave a commanding view over ten kilometers of the line. More if you bothered to zoom in.

Between the two lines of hills was a small dell, marshy and rather damp. The water had been drained during the fortification process, with a pipe installed to keep pumping out water. It was now acting as a supply of freshwater to the area's troops and alleviating some of the logistics.

Third Platoon's IFVs were arrayed behind the hills, to shield them from enemy fire. Each of the vehicles was hunkered tightly against their position. If things went as predicted, the squid would open up with a huge salvo of artillery, advancing their main battle tanks into the valley with infantry supporting. What infantry, exactly, would accompany the tanks was in flux, as it usually was with this sort of thing.

In any case, Emma found herself busy being bored. Everyone already knew the plan, after all, and there was very little to discuss when most of it was "wait for the enemy to show up". Ingrid was in the bunker at the base of Cluster 14's most easterly hill, monitoring the situation as it developed. Emma would have been with her, and would go there as the projected time of arrival neared, but she was too hyped up to sit still. A wander around the emplacements appeared to be in order

"Lieutenant Sinclair, good evening," said Sergeant Hobbs as Emma knocked on the side of his IFV. Sergeant Major Hobbs was in charge of Squad C, Team 1. He, like everyone in his team, specialized in defensive fighting positions. "How can we help you?"

"I'm just wandering, Sergeant," said Emma, leaning against the open hatchway. "You guys have some time to talk?"

"We're just waiting, sir," said Corporal Hayes. "Nothing much to do."

"Hurry up and wait, right?" asked Emma. The group chuckled. "How're you all feeling? Did you get dinner yet?"

"We've already eaten," said Hayes. "We're… dealing. It hasn't been a great start to the campaign."

"We could really use some more manpower," said another corporal. "But, it looks like it's not coming."

"Well, we'll be hooking up with the retreating units, so you should be able to get some help from them," said Emma. "The 24th Combined Arms is supposed to make their retreat towards this position."

"It's just not the same as getting more troops," said Hayes. "There's coordination issues, and logistics, and—."

"Bitching aside," interjected Hobbs. "There are a lot of things we'd like, sir, but the guys and I are dealing with the reality as best we can."

"That's good," said Emma. "You uh, you guys got any interesting stories?"

"Nothing that's appropriate for right now, I don't think," said Hobbs, glancing around the IFV.

"Well, there's the story about Gunn and the "massage parlour" back on—."

"As I said," said Hobbs, giving the offending soldier a jab with the butt of his rifle. "Nothing that's appropriate for the moment, sir. Maybe later, if we're still alive, we could talk."

Emma gave Hobbs a look. "I'm not a child, Sergeant."

"Well, with respect sir, you're not exactly old," said Hobbs.

Emma rolled her eyes. Adults will be adults. "Whatever, I guess I'll leave you guys to it then. Stay safe."

"The same to you, sir."

"Good luck sir."

"Stay safe."

Emma nodded at the troops and moved on. Cluster 14 was very wide, spanning more than a kilometer. Emma was glad for the exercise though, if only because moving helped her think. It was a little early, she supposed, to try and become friends with the troops under her command. Though performing well in the last battle had apparently won her a lot of points, she still had a long way to go.

Talking to the rest of the platoon took another hour. It wasn't until she reached B Squad, Team 4 that she found any interesting conversation.

"Lieutenant Sinclair, good to see you," said Magnusson. "Out for a walk?"

"That's right," said Emma. The anti-armor fireteam was sitting beside their IFV, not doing much. "How're you guys doing? Have you eaten yet?"

"We were just about to, Lieutenant," said Sergeant Reynolds, the leader of the fireteam. "What about you?"

"I haven't had anything," said Emma. "Do you, uh, mind if I join you?"

Reynolds paused, taken aback, before gesturing: "Sure, please, take a seat Lieutenant."

Emma sat down on one of the stumps that the fireteam and recovered from the drones. A quick check showed that the fireteam had already placed their orders and the delivery drones were one their way. Emma sent her order in as well and turned to the group of soldiers.

"So, uh, what's the word around the campfire, so to speak?" asked Emma.

"Well, we were just discussing knitting, Lieutenant," said Magnusson with a wave of one hand. "Reynolds there says that it's impossible to learn cable knitting before learning the basic stockinette, but Shun says that you can start anywhere, as long as you can pull out the right concepts."

"…how do you know so much about knitting?" asked Reynolds.

"I made it up," said Magnusson. "Truth is, Lieutenant, there's nothing to talk about."

"Yeah, that's what everyone else is saying," said Emma, propping her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. "I wish it wasn't this boring all the time."

A round of affirming grunts.

"Although, now that I think of it," said Magnusson. "Technically, we could take you drinking."

Shun blinked, then shook his head in exasperation. "That is a bad idea on so many levels."

"It's a fantastic plan, what are you talking about?"

"I agree with Shun, we're not taking the Lieutenant drinking," said Reynolds. "Unless you're trying to get court-martialed and out of the war."

There was a collective pause while everyone considered this.

"That's actually not a bad idea," said Magnusson. "What do you say, Lieutenant? We'll go drinking and make a huge scandal and—."

Shun reached over and whacked him upside the head.

"No."

"Ow!"

The two began arguing about whether getting court martialed was a valid way of retiring.

"So I heard you had lunch with these two," said Reynolds, nodding at Magnusson and Shun. "I apologize for the mental trauma."

"No, no, it's fine," said Emma. "Hehe, it's good that they can relax around me, actually."

"What do you mean?" asked Reynolds. A delivery drone zipped up and held out a boxed dinner for him.

"I mean, I'm an officer," said Emma. "It's the formality thing. I'm not a fan of it."

"You have a background in football, correct?" asked Shun, his argument with Magnusson broken up by the delivery drones.

"That's right," said Emma. "It's a much closer knit community, and I'm used to leading that sort of team. This is…" Emma waved at the air "…I'm just not accustomed to the way the military does it."

"Understandable," said Reynolds. "If you don't mind, sir, we'll get started on our food. Did you order something?"

"Oh, go ahead," said Emma. "My food's on its way."

"Right."

Emma watched the three soldiers eat in silence for awhile. Charlie must not have gotten fixed up in time for the battle. It was a little depressing, seeing the empty space.

"So, Lieutenant, you mentioned it was really different, leading a platoon," said Magnusson. "What's the big thing for you?"

"The formality," said Emma. "I'd rather we called each other by name, honestly. And the separation of enlisted and commissioned is irritating as well."

"There's good reason for that though," said Shun.

"I know, but that doesn't mean I like it," said Emma. The adults shrugged. That was fair. "I'm also not used to not really known what I'm doing," continued Emma. "I want to take a bigger role in the leadership of the platoon, but that's just not realistic right now."

"Well there's always an acclimation period," said Reynolds.

"Yeah, but it's still annoying," said Emma. Her food arrived, and she continued speaking as she prepared to eat. "Also how I can't actually lead directly, most of the time, since we're split off for combat so often. If I'm given a responsibility, I'd like to be able to do my job."

"Leadership is difficult," said Reynolds. "Don't be in such a hurry. There are many ways and many times to lead."

Emma prodded at her dinner with a fork. "I guess I'm just being a teenager, but whatever. I'm complaining a lot."

"We all have grandkids," said Shun. He shrugged "We're used to it. It's good for you to work out your problems out loud."

"And besides, you're young," said Magnusson. "You have plenty of time. Though I guess that's not as meaningful as it could be, seeing as everyone's basically immortal these days."

"Yeah, you could have chosen a better phrase," said Reynolds. "But you get the drift, Lieutenant."

"Meh," said Emma. "Let's talk about something else. Do you guys follow football at all?"

"Of course," said Reynolds. "We all got our favorites, and the Earth Cup's always a big deal. You cheer for Great Britain, yeah?"

"During the Earth Cup, yeah, but London Metropolitan any other time," said Emma. "You're uh, you're from Australia, right Reynolds? Do you have a city you cheer for?"

"Melbourne Greens, yeah" said Reynolds. "You can guess who Shun and Magnusson cheer for."

"Oh yeah, it's not a difficult guess…."

Emma ended up spending the rest of the evening talking with Team B-4. Football was the main topic, along with the chances their various home teams in the next Earth Cup. Emma was sure that Team Britain would manage to win, they'd just had some bad luck with injuries early. She was equally certain that Team Brazil would be utterly smashed if it and Team Britain met up. All in all, it was an enjoyable evening.

It wasn't until it started raining that Emma remembered that the squid attack was nearing, and that she was needed elsewhere. Hurriedly, she bid farewell to Team B-4 and returned to the command bunker at a quick jog.

It was nearly time.


	13. Bunnies, Kittens, and Unicorns

_The thing about squid artillery is not just that there's so much of it, but how it just completely wipes out your ability to maneuver flexibly._

_-Brigadier General Henrietta Lewis, 14th Regiment, 4th Magical Division, 3rd Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

_It's too bad magical girls aren't more common. I'd prefer they didn't die, obviously, but it would be nice to have a few of them around when things get really bad._

_-Tank Commander Adam Decu, 8th Squadron, 12th Regiment, 8th Armor Division, 7th Army Group of the Huang River_

* * *

The tension in the bunker slowly rose as Emma waited with the command team. There was a sense of deja vu as Emma quietly loaded and unloaded her sidearm. The ammunition block clicked as it latched and unlatched in the quiet of the operations room. Team C-4, the platoon's E-warfare Specialists, were just down the hall, monitoring things on their equipment.

Emma glanced to the side as her TacComp pinged again. The tide of red on her map had advanced far enough that the main line was falling back again. Everything appeared to be as close to on schedule as might be expected for a war.

It occurred to Emma suddenly that this was the first time she was actually waiting for an offensive. Sims didn't count, you always had installed memories to help you through them. Emma had spent the down time in the sims fiddling with her sidearm, but it felt strange doing it now. Or rather, it felt natural, but it felt odd for it to feel natural.

Or maybe the weirdness was just nerves.

"Could you stop that, Lieutenant?" asked Beckett. He and Han were sitting nearby, still as sculpture while they waited. Ingrid was much the same, save for the occasional twitch as she checked something. "The clicking is driving me mad."

Emma blinked as the ammunition block clicked into the weapon. "Oh, sorry," she said, putting the gun back in her holster before laying her hands on the table.

It was only about ten seconds before Emma stood up and began pacing. It really was nerves, it seemed. Eight steps one way, pivot on toes, eight steps the other. She was wearing the boots that came with her costume, though the armor plates had been retained, and clicked with each step.

"Lieutenant," said Beckett again. His voice sounded strained.

Emma grimaced and apologized again. She stepped lightly over to a nearby medical crate, one of many stored in the bunkers across Cluster 14. A dozen emergency trauma drones were stored inside each crate, and they chittered as Emma leaned against it. She sent them a mental gesture to go back to sleep mode. Her finger itched to begin tapping on the top, and it took a conscious effort for her to stop.

This was maddening. Emma sighed and pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes. Slowly, she counted to ten.

"You know, it helps if you find something to do," said Beckett dryly. "Sitting around doesn't really come naturally to kids your age, after all."

Emma swallowed back a snipe at Beckett. Calling him an old geezer more likely to fall asleep than be ready was probably not the best idea. Instead she plunked to the floor beside the crate and stared moodily at a table leg, drawing her legs up and folding her arms atop them.

…She decided to start a call with Ayane. CAS was grounded, in anticipation of the huge quantities of projectile fire soon to be incoming. Ayane wouldn't be doing much except waiting, and they hadn't had any time to… to just talk lately.

Jeez, that had been back on the _Salvation_. That'd only been a couple of days ago, but it felt like nearly a year. Emma sighed as she sent the call request in. This was mad.

"Hi Emma," said Ayane. "What's up?"

"Nothing much, just antsy and wanted to talk," said Emma, rubbing her nose and sighing again. "How's the waiting?"

"Oh, you know," said Ayane. "Bored. I mean, I feel kind of bad, since people are going to be dying, but I really just want this to get started."

"Yeah, same here," said Emma. "At least we'd be able to do something about it instead of staring at a red blob. Is the 12th CAS doing anything specific for, uh, for later?"

"We've bombed up with more anti-armor and cluster weapons," said Ayane. "I mean… what else would we do?"

"I dunno," said Emma, shrugging. "Groundpounder, remember? I never learned up on what you CAS people do."

"Well, it's pretty simple really," said Ayane, scratching her ear. "Have target, will bomb."

"That's it?"

"Pretty much. Unless you want to get into the details of combat."

"Nah, I got enough to worry about on the ground," said Emma. "Oh, I forgot to ask earlier, but uh, how'd you guys end up, after the fight?"

"We did alright," said Ayane with a tired grin. "Busy as hell, but we didn't lose too any girls, and we've got a ton of supplies and spare drones."

"I guess us ground-pounders kept you guys busy?"

"Mmhm, lots of calls for air support," said Ayane. "My wingmate and I are part of the fast attack team, so we were running around a lot."

"You're alright though?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," said Ayane. "Why do you ask?"

"You were saying, at the med center, that the sims had you dying a lot," said Emma. "I just figured, since there was a lot of double-A that, you know."

"Oh, well, I mean, I lost a bit of my liver and a kidney," said Ayane with a shrug. "Nothing major, really."

Emma blinked at this, before laughing. "Hehe, I didn't really expect you to say that."

"Eh, why?"

"Well, I mean, it's just that, you remember what we were talking about, in your hotel room that one time?" said Emma, scratching her nose. "Back when we'd just contracted for like a week?"

"When I visited Mitakihara, you mean?" asked Ayane. "We uh… I remember talking about going to war and having a pillow fight."

Emma smiled fondly. "The pillow fight was fun. I was just thinking, you were kind of nervous back then, and now you're talking about losing major organs like its no big deal."

"Oh," said Ayane. "Uh… I uh, I'm not sure, I guess."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"I mean uh," stuttered Ayane, caught off guard. "I mean, I don't feel any different, is all."

"I guess not," said Emma. "It'd be kinda weird if you did, I guess. Growing's a gradual thing, right?"

Ayane nodded. "Right. I guess, uh, I guess it makes sense that sometimes, I feel like the day I contracted?"

Emma paused, before nodding cautiously as well. "I… guess."

"You guess?"

"I mean, I feel kinda different from all the way back then," said Emma. "I've definitely learned some new things and can do better in combat than before."

"But, aren't you scared?" asked Ayane.

"Of what?"

"Of.. of… I dunno. Just stuff, I guess."

"I mean, I'm always afraid of stuff like dying, I guess," said Emma. "Or of getting my platoon killed by screwing up. Stuff like that, you know?"

"I guess," said Ayane. "I… it's just, you don't really show it."

"Well you don't either," said Emma with a roll of her eyes. "I mean, you gave me that whole motivational speech a couple hours ago."

"I gu—."

"Bah, stop," said Emma. "Hey seriously now, are you having a crisis of confidence on me here, Ayane?"

"I… I guess?" said Ayane. She giggled at Emma's mock scowl. "But really, I don't know! It's like when you're busy, you don't think about it, but when you're sitting around it all comes rushing in."

"Uhh," said Emma. "I… uh."

"…You don't do that."

"Uh, no."

"Well now I feel weird."

"Nono, I mean, I bet a lot of people do that," said Emma hurriedly. "Like, I'll bet that a lot of the soldiers think about dying all the time."

Ayane's face fell. "Mm," she sighed sadly.

"Hey, chin up," said Emma. She half reached out towards Ayane's image before stopping herself. Ayane glanced up exactly as Emma began pulling her arm back and blinked.

"…Were you going to try and touch me?" asked Ayane.

"…No," said Emma, looking away, embarrassed.

Ayane giggled. "You totally were!"

"No I wasn't!" protested Emma.

"Hehe, did you forget that it's a mental call?"

"S-shut up!" said Emma, flushing. "I just-! It was just that-…"

"Yyyyyeeeeeess?"

"…It was just that you looked sad," said Emma, looking away and scratching her cheek nervously. "And I… I wanted to cheer you up.

Ayane blinked at this. "I, uh, thanks?"

Emma continued refusing to look at Ayane. "I uh, I didn't make it awkward, did I?"

"Oh, no, it's fine, I uh, I appreciate it," said Ayane, blushing slightly as well and scratching her nose. "I really do. Thanks."

Emma glanced back and smiled. "…Do you feel better then?"

Ayane nodded, smiling back. "Yeah."

The two of them were quiet for a moment. This time the silence did begin to grow awkward.

"So, uh, what are your flight mates like?" asked Emma, switching topics as soon as possible.

"Ah, yes, well, my section lead—."

A thunderous explosion from outside cut her off. Ayane and Emma both dropped to the ground instinctively, then immediately turned red. Maybe they should be paying more attention to the battle at hand…

"I'll, uh, call you back," said Emma as she picked herself up off the floor.

"Right, um, stay safe," said Ayane. She smiled once more at Emma before her image blipped out.

"…You too."

"Have a nice conversation?" asked Beckett wryly as the command team quietly chuckled. Even Han appeared vaguely amused.

"I, er, yeah I did," said Emma. "…Why are you all- is there something funny?"

"You kept making faces when you were on your call," said Beckett.

"And blushing," added Ingrid.

"And forgetting that you were on call," continued Beckett. He was clearly grinning behind his helmet as Emma went red all over again.

"S-shut up," she said, and primly swiveled away from him. "This isn't the time to be making fun of me, Beckett."

"Hehehe…."

Emma ignored the sergeant's chuckles and looked through her updates. The artillery barrage was arriving largely as expected, although it was slightly late. Emma flicked her map into a 3D representation to watch the fall of the shells, as well as track the movements of friendly units. By the looks of it, things would be rough for anyone out in the open. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any issues that needed Emma's—

"Company HQ to Third Platoon, prepare immediately to move out," ordered Fatima. "Part of the 24th Combined Arms Regiment is requesting an escort action through the barrage."

—attention.

"Oh fun," said Emma sarcastically, getting to her feet and handing the medical crate to Ingrid. Across the battlenet, the rest of the platoon switched from "idle" to "underway". "Understood, Third Platoon is loading up."

"Be careful," said Fatima. "You know how big those explosions are."

"We'll bring plenty of ammo," said Emma. She set a box of ammunition down on the floor of her IFV and sent the reminder down the line as she said it. Their IFVs' targeting systems could be reconfigured to perform anti-air duty. Modern artillery fired shells large enough to be tracked, so it wasn't difficult to either avoid the projectile or shoot it out of the sky with the integrated defensive suite.

"Right. Stay safe then. Company HQ out."

Emma blinked at the departure and bit her lip. Everyone was tense, it seemed.

"Lieutenant, we're ready to go," said Beckett. His tone no longer carried his previous amusement.

"Right," said Emma. She checked her sidearm one last time, reviewed her grenade and grief cube inventories, and paused as she wondered if she ought to bring anything else with her.

"Do we have any flechettes?" asked Emma.

"Yes," said Beckett. "They're over there in the corner. Why do you want them?"

"Just an idea," said Emma thoughtfully. She considered it another second, then jumped down and ran over to the crate of flechettes. The long, stiletto-like projectiles were explosive and designed to be fired out of a light anti-armor railgun. They also made excellent melee weapons, if you were so inclined.

"Going ninja on us, Lieutenant?" asked Beckett.

"That is strongly inadvisable," said Ingrid and Han in almost perfect unison. They both seemed extremely concerned.

"Don't worry," said Emma. "I'm thinking about using them at range. Let's move."

* * *

The two IFVs moved quickly out of their bunker, joining the widely spaced, vaguely triangular formation of constantly circulating IFVs that were what remained of Third Platoon.

It was distressing, actually, now that Emma looked over their numbers in more detail. Third Platoon was down to almost exactly 48% strength, with some variation for injured and equipment maintenance. This was distinctly alarming, especially since most of the squid forces were at nearly full strength. There wasn't much time to do huge amounts of damage when you were fighting a delaying action.

With a bit of luck, they'd get away with minimal casualties. Escort missions were all about running as fast possible, after all.

Emma pushed these considerations to the side and sent a ping towards the magical girl, Captain Rena Ogilvie, of the 24th's Mechanized Battalion, A Company. The response was filled with static and incomprehensible.

"We're being jammed pretty hardcore," said Rena over telepathy. "Talk here."

"Right, well, we're moving out right now," said Emma as the platoon's IFVs moved over the trenches, keeping their guns as quiet as they could to conserve ammo. "Where do you want us?"

"The squid are pushing hard against our rear," said Rena, highlighting the relevant strip of land on Emma's map. "When you get here, make a hard flanking assault, then pull back as we retreat."

"What's the status of your MGs?"

"…It's been difficult, we've lost more than I had hoped for," said Rena. Emma realized that the captain must have been under suppression, the slight pause giving it away. "But we're holding steady. Grief cubes are low, we can't spare too much flash at the moment."

"Right," said Emma, considering her options. "I'll coordinate with the girls on the ground. You're retreating?"

"Unfortunately," said Rena. Emma could hear a tint of bitterness in her voice. "I'll see you around."

"Stay safe."

"You too."

Emma flicked her telepathy over to the MG team. A pair of girls were whirling about, keeping the squid pinned as their platoons retreated, then falling back to recharge their gems as their platoons returned the favor. Emma waited until they had dropped into a trench to recharge before breaking into the conversation.

"Fucking hell," said the first girl, Sasha. "Took you long enough!"

"Sorry," said Emma.

"How many of you are there?"

"Just me," said Emma, biting her lip.

"What, why?" asked the second girl, Hisako. "We're getting torn up out here!"

"Dunno, didn't ask," said Emma before she quickly moved on. "But uh, I've got plenty of juice and grief cubes though, so how do you want to do this?"

There was a pause as they all glanced through each other's personnel files. Hisako was a powerful illusionist that fought using an electric guitar and various magically floating amps. Sasha was an ice mage and fellow pole arm user, possessing a whaling harpoon and long coil of rope. Both had several years experience on Emma.

"Well, at least you're a competent newbie" said Sasha. "Hisa, you wanna do the usual smash-em-up routine?"

"She's AOE, so that'd be best," said Hisako. "She can take Justine's place for now."

"I'll do my best," said Emma. Justine must be one of the mages their company had lost.

"Whack in from the right and give us a nice, loud bang," said Sasha. "You're a wind mage, so I'll try and coordinate some sort of blizzard with you. Hisako will cover your approach with a solo. As soon as you hit, we'll move the troops back."

"Got it," said Emma. She checked the weather, the rain was steadily getting worse, as she sent the command out. The platoon veered right, Ingrid apparently having little to add. Then again, it wasn't a plan that Emma'd come up with. "We could do a hailstorm."

"Sounds plausible," said Sasha. "We'll worry about it later. Get in position."

"Right," said Emma. She switched to the local battlenet, boosted by the IFV's internal transmitters. "Third platoon, we'll be doing a standard smash and grab operation. 24th's Hisako Tsukino will provide illusions for cover, so hopefully it won't be too bad. There's a lot of jamming, so don't get too far from the vehicles. MGs first, followed by delaying action to fortified positions. I'll buy you as much time as I can."

A chorus of affirmatives.

"Good luck," said Ingrid as their IFV accelerated and moved to the head of the formation.

"Thanks," said Emma. "The 24th's taken a lot of hits. They may need medical attention."

"I will take care of it," said Ingrid. "Stay safe."

"I will," said Emma. She stood up and prepared to propel herself out of the turret hatch. The rest of the platoon compressed for maximum impact, forming into a tight wedge.

Emma shivered as a tingle swept over her.

"Illusion is on," Hisako whispered. Emma figured she must be concentrating on her music.

"ETA forty seconds on my mark," said Emma. "…Mark."

"Roger that," said Sasha. "Will commence my attack at T-Plus ten."

"Understood," said Emma. She took a deep breath. The world stilled around her. She closed her eyes and unlatched the hatch.

Another intake of breath…

…Time to go.

Emma launched upwards. She felt herself tip sideways as the wind hit her from the side. With a grunt, she remaneuvered herself upwards and fired a jet of air down and back, pushing her forward to arc high over the battlefield. Below, her enhanced vision saw clearly where the squid infantry was trying to push forward, slowly making its way up despite the fire from the human soldiers.

Emma grit her teeth and popped a series of vortex spheres into existence. Pivoting in midair, she began kicking them with pinpoint accuracy into the enemy positions. Fireteams scattered as the mortar-like explosions displaced them from their positions. Immediately, lasers arced upwards to search for her, but Hisako's illusion kept Emma safe.

As she neared the ground, Emma chucked a blast of wind downwards to slow herself. It was also liberally filled with wind blades and massively accelerated raindrops. The large gust of wind was on track to slam into part of the enemy line—

—and then condensed into razor sharp droplets of ice, still moving at velocity. Tiny little things, hardly dangerous, except they'd been made by Sasha's magic. Emma blinked as the entire section of the enemy line disappeared into a greenish brown haze, ripped to pieces by the mixing of her magic with Sasha's.

"Holy shit, newbie, that was wicked!" said Sasha. Out of the corner of her eye, Emma saw a figure with a large furry hat charge up from the trench. "What else you got?"

Emma grinned. It felt good to be useful. "How about this?"

She twisted in midair, pirouetting like she'd seen Rene do several times as she landed on the ground. It also helped accelerate a large jet of air. Emma planted her foot and pushed forward with a shout, the air jet screaming through space to rip straight down the enemy line.

Alone, it would have been decently effective, but again Sasha added her ice magic to the jet and turned the whirling dervish of death into a howling dragon that clawed through earth and flesh with wild abandon.

"Goddess be damned!" cheered Sasha. "Holy shit, newbie, you should—!"

An explosion cut her off, sending her flying. Emma swore and leaped forward, the older magical girl spinning limply through the air. They impacted with a thud, before Emma managed to get them both to the ground. A quick scan showed that no, Sasha hadn't died, her gem was intact and healthy enough.

Moments later, Sasha blinked and shook her head. "Ow."

"You got hit by artillery," said Emma, lying on her stomach in the mud to peek over a crater's rim. More artillery was inbound, but by now Third Platoon had smashed into the enemy's flank and was providing limited anti-air support. "You're okay?"

"Musta hurt my brain a bit," said Sasha, flexing her fingers and taking deep breaths. "…I think I'm okay."

"Good," said Emma. "What next?"

"Move everyone back two hundred meters and give them time to get there," said Sasha. She rolled onto her stomach as well. "Hisako?"

"Here."

"You want to do cover duty, now that we got a good AOE?"

"That'd be nice, yeah."

"Cool, you cover the guys. Newbie—.""

"Emma."

"—Emma and I'll give suppressing fire."

"Let's do it then."

"Do you need any grief cubes?" asked Emma. She extruded several HE grenades from her backpack. "I'm pretty juiced, so…."

"It's cool, we'll wait till we get back to the line," said Sasha. She pushed her hat back on her head to get it out of her eyes. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

"Let's do this thing!"

Both girls burst up and sideways, swinging left and right in wide arcs to get an even spread across the enemy line and its upcoming reinforcements. Emma ran five meters, planted her left foot, spun, and pulled a gust down the length of the trench, swishing past Sasha. In what was quickly becoming routine, Sasha froze the air as it passed, turning it into a blast of deadly ice that ripped into the lightly armored standard troopers.

The first line was now effectively clear. With Third Platoon now moving back in careful, coordinated leapfrog fashion, Emma and Sasha ran forward to deal with the upcoming reinforcements. Emma braced herself again, pulled at her magic—

—and dived sideways as no less than seven snipers tried to kill her.

"Holy shit," Emma gasped, before launching herself upwards as another salvo came in. "Shit, Sasha!"

"I can't find them!" Sasha called back. She was ducking and weaving herself, throwing up the occasional magical shield. "Fuck, they learn quick."

"Yeah, well," Emma began, before scooting sideways in midair, then diving for the ground. "I kind of wish they didn't!"

"Shoulda said that when you contracted!" Sasha laughed. "Close and attack in melee, they can't shoot you if you're in the middle of their own troops!"

"Right," said Emma, skidding in the mud before running forward. An idea occurred to her as she ran. Her magic shield shimmered into place, before she gathered a huge burst of magic and launched herself into the reinforcements, scattering them like bowling pins with her impact.

"Nice one!" said Sasha. The older girl stabbed with her harpoon and yanked the pole back, a fresh rope and harpoon-head appearing.

"I'll work towards you!" Emma shouted, pulling a halberd out and whirling to hack into a squid. With a grunt, she slammed the stricken cephalopod into the mud, pulled the ax head free, and launched the spear point into another's face.

"Right!"

Combat turned into a mad whirlwind of flying ichor and just-dodged laser blasts. Emma kept herself fluid, letting her instincts slip her through the fray with minimal damage. A few lines scored across armor, one or two knocks to the head, but standard troopers were routine and she could handle them easily.

A beeping drew her out of the nearly mundane act of cleaving heads in two. Hisako and the three platoons had withdrawn sufficiently, it was time for Emma and Sasha to pull back.

Emma spun and dropped a spray of smoke grenades around her. They popped and exuded thick clouds of nano-scale smoke, giving Emma perfect screen to make a run for the rear. To her left, Sasha had done the same and was slowly pulling ahead, the older girl better at magically-accelerated running. A tingle spread across Emma's skin again as Hisako began an illusion to keep them safe. Artillery shells fell at random, trying to find them but easily diverted around.

"Same plan next time," Sasha said over telepathy. "We'll recharge and then keep moving back. If all goes well—."

Instincts shrieked at them simultaneously. Emma ended up rocketing back and up, while Sasha made an ice block to slam into. Neither knew what had made them stop—

—until a searingly hot blast ripped into the ground along the human line, tracing sideways with a sound like the sky ripping apart. It was like a column of light, except the air crackled and ionized around it. A massive laser, impossibly powerful, had impacted the line. Seconds later, Emma and Sasha were peppered with fragments of bodies, charred armor, and baked earth.

"HISAKO!" Sasha screamed, leaping forward. The illusionist had dropped out of all sensors. Emma dived out of the sky and slammed Sasha into the ground as a second blast came from on high, burning its way through the ranks of the 24th and Third Platoon.

"Fall back!" Emma ordered. She had no idea what was happening, but there wasn't any time.

"Emma, we can't-"

A third laser blast. Emma ducked a piece of flying debris. Then a lull. Mercifully, it seemed it would take time for the squid to recharge.

"Ingrid, get everyone back to Cluster 14," said Emma. "The platoon is too exposed, and we can't rejoin you without getting blown up. If we stealth cloak and follow, we should be okay."

There was complete silence over the battlenet as everyone processed this. Nobody wanted to abandon a magical girl, much less two. It went against everything they had been trained to do. But holding back a tank battalion was a far cry from letting yourself get blown to pieces from the air.

Ingrid made a snap decision. She hoped she wouldn't regret it.

"...God speed, Emma," said Ingrid. "You heard the girl, everyone move!"

En masse, the remnants heaved themselves out of the trenches and made a run for it, piling into what active vehicles remained and abandoning the position. Emma took a deep breath and pushed a handful of grief cubes into Sasha's hands.

"Were you and Hisako close?" Emma asked, pulling more cubes for herself.

"Yes," said Sasha, almost absently, as she purified her gem. "We were friends from training."

"I'm sorry for your loss," said Emma. Over head, the massive laser streaked past, ripping into other platoons across the 24th's retreating column. Behind them, a fresh wave of infantry began advancing at speed. "…C'mon, we need to pull back, we'll be overrun if we stay here. Let's go."

"…Yes," growled Sasha, face darkening. "Let's."


	14. Adventure Time is Best Time

_As soon as magical girls decide that all means are permitted in combat, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the darkness that they set out to destroy._

_-Captain Christine Dawson, D Company, 22nd Regiment, 3rd Magical Division, 8th Army Group of the Nile_

* * *

_The light at the end of the tunnel is usually a squid tank cannon. In cases where this is not true, inform your Chaplain. Clearly, a miracle has occurred._

_-Lieutenant Isabella McDonnell, 1st Platoon, C Company, 31st Regiment, 8th Magical Division, 1st Army Group of the Ganges_

* * *

Emma and Sasha quietly thought over the situation as they retreated.

It was really very poor.

The IFVs were retreating as quickly as they could, their MG complements being sent to the rear while the soldiers delayed the onslaught as much as possible. This left only the two of them as the magical compliment.

Overhead, lasers continued to rip into the human formations. The squid were largely out of range, but they didn't need to open fire if the enemy was being blown to pieces from afar. Occasionally, Emma and Sasha would launch a blast of magic to help out a particularly distressed fireteam, but it was far, far too little.

At first, Emma and Sasha had tried to put up a fight, but the sheer volume of fire that converged upon them was too much. It was impossible to do anything substantive, the sheer number of infantry rolling over the horizon made the damage they did moot. Frustrated and with a limited grief cube supply, they could only run.

Emma looked up at the stormy sky and the ragged holes ripped in the clouds. She could just catch a glimpse of the ridiculously huge battle station hovering twenty miles back. A trivial range for most artillery, if it weren't for the fact that the "Airship" was the size of a squid cruiser, had enough shields to count as a frigate and had the firepower to match.

"Fucking Reapers," Sasha growled to herself.

"We'll take it out eventually," reassured Emma. She was still looking over the terrain as the two of them retreated, moving under cover of their backpacks' stealth generators.

No, what was needed was a large enough assault that would end up disrupting a large number of enemies. A nuke would be good, but Emma suspected that this was not strategically sound. Standard practice was to NOT irradiate a hugely fertile area if possible, and, absurdly, it seemed that the squid had similar ideas. It certainly explained why the human garrison was still alive, though admittedly Emma wasn't really sure of just what was available to counter things like that.

"There's a fireteam, to our right," said Sasha. Emma paused and glanced over. The small team of soldiers was strung out and falling back as best as it could. Another fireteam's worth of soldiers lay dead a few yards in front of them.

"Smash and grab," said Emma simply.

"Go," said Sasha, magic flaring around her in cold, icy white-blue.

Emma rocketed out of cover, using the charge she'd improvised earlier to bowl through the squad attempting to destroy the embattled fireteam. As the bodies flew through the air, Emma whipped the strands of magic around her into a localized whirlwind. Sasha froze it moments later. Troopers fell, limbless and headless and generally dead.

"Thanks for the assist, Lieutenant," said one of the troops. "But shouldn't you be—?"

"We're falling back, Corporal, don't worry," said Emma as Sasha appeared beside her to finish off one of the dying squid. "Keep your troops moving." Emma twitched as Sasha broke open the squid's chest with a kick, then froze its internal organs. "…We will follow."

"…Right," said the corporal, glancing at Sasha's kill and back to Emma. "Stay safe then, Lieutenant."

Emma nodded as the corporal turned and began running, the remaining members of the fireteam quickly moving across the field. The stealth generators on Emma and Sasha's backpacks finished recharging and reengaged.

"We're getting close to the main defensive line," said Emma as Sasha punched her harpoon through another squid in the groin, then ripped it out.

"Hn."

"…You should probably take a break, Sasha."

"Don't tell me what to do, Newbie," said Sasha, grinding the heel of her boot into the squid's ruined genitalia. The squid thrashed, trying and failing to remove Sasha from it. Slowly the movements faded as it bled out.

Emma checked Sasha's gem. It was still falling, ticking down a percentage point once every few minutes. This was not going to end well.

"At least stop doing that," said Emma, grimacing in distaste.

"Go fuck yourself, Newbie," said Sasha. "These bastards don't deserve any better."

"I'm just saying—."

"Second Lieutenant Emma Sinclair you Goddess damned IDIOT!" shouted Fatima telepathically. Emma nearly dropped to the ground in shock. "What the FUCK do you think you're doing?!"

"I'm covering—!"

"Like HELL you are!" Fatima shouted. "You will fall back IMMEDIATELY whereupon I will COURT MARTIAL your ass so hard you won't be able to—!"

"There's a Reaper, Fatima!"

"That has no bearing whatsoever on your current status, especially when you know that the teleporters are tied up with the rest of the Goddess-damned line!" said Fatima. She was plainly furious. "I am not losing a girl because she has a misplaced sense of duty!"

"Fatima, there's no way we're going to be able to hold the squid off AND get the units back in anything resembling one piece!" Emma countered angrily. "Is one newbie more important than half a division?!"

Fatima was silent.

"You can't save half a division, Emma," said Fatima. "I understand what you're trying to do, but—."

"Like hell I can't!"

"Maybe if you burn your gem out but we are NOT that desperate!" Fatima shouted back. "Get back here IMMEDIATELY. That is an ORDER."

Emma inhaled furiously then bit her lip.

"…Understood," she said finally. "I will link up with remnants of the 24th and retreat to the first defensive line."

"Good," said Fatima. "We will have words about this later."

"Yes sir," said Emma. She turned to Sasha. "Let's go."

"You being recalled?" asked Sasha. She resummoned her harpoon and jogged up to match Emma's pace as she vectored towards the nearest working IFV.

"Yes."

"I guess I'll be alone then," said Sasha. "Nice knowin' you, Newbie."

"You need to come with me," said Emma. "You need to rest."

"I'll rest when the squid are all dead," said Sasha darkly. Her gem ticked another point downwards.

"If you don't rest, you'll be too tired to keep up the fight," countered Emma.

It was the first time Sasha had been made to give pause. She came to a full stop as she considered this.

"…Fine."

Emma grimaced. It would have to do.

They continued the run in silence, helping out along the way as necessary. Occasionally, they caught a glimpse of the enemy armored columns running across the battlefields, moving to encircle vast tracts of the retreating units. With the Reaper unbalancing human maneuvers with well placed and overwhelming firepower, nothing else could be done until the momentum turned and a response could be made.

Emma's TacComp pinged as it came within range of an IFV. The transmitter was still sending out enough of a signal that it was overcoming the squid jamming.

"Damn," Emma cursed as she looked at her newly updated map. There was more than one Reaper, and the entire front in this region was being carved up. Her immediate vicinity was already close to getting encircled. If she could just—

But no, she had been ordered to fall back. And she wasn't going to disobey Fatima like that.

"Lieutenants, what the hell are you doing here?" asked a soldier in the IFV.

"We're extracting right now," said Emma. "Can you pick us up?" She flagged her and Sasha's position on the local map.

"Doing so right now," said the soldier. The IFV and one of its fellows swung towards Emma and Sasha. The remaining two IFVs pulled together for greater coverage against the incoming artillery fire. Two IFVs would probably go unnoticed by the local Reaper.

"Contact right!" Sasha called out suddenly. The IFVs swerved, scattering as their autocannon swiveled and began firing. Flashes of fire blossomed across a nearby ridge-top, before a battery of missile fire streaked in.

Emma didn't let them impact. With a shout, she sent a wave of air down range. Sasha immediately froze the raindrops inside it. The missiles exploded far away from the IFVs.

"Jump for it!" Sasha shouted as they sprinted forward, lasers converging on their revealed position. Emma nodded, and they both leaped forward.

With simultaneous clangs, they landed on the incoming IFVs. Immediately, the vehicles pulled hard left turns and accelerated to maximum speed. The turboshaft engines screamed as Emma and Sasha gripped the tops of the vehicles with their magic, working on deflecting incoming missiles and shield against lasers.

"We're out of range," said one of the soldiers. Emma breathed a sigh of relief as she swung herself into the IFV. "Thanks for the assist, Lieutenants."

"Hn," grunted Sasha.

"You're welcome," said Emma, sitting down with a sigh and checking her gem's purity. "What unit are you guys from?"

"C Company, 8th Battalion of the 24th," said the sergeant in charge.

"You're pretty far from your unit, Sergeant."

"Everyone's scattered, ma'am," said the sergeant. Emma blinked at the word choice. "We're making our way as best we can."

"Are you speaking British English?" asked Emma, raising an eyebrow.

"Er, yes ma'am," said the sergeant. "M'name's Sergeant David O'Malley."

Emma grinned. Irish though the last name was, a Brit was a Brit.

"You're from the UK then?" she asked, switching to British English herself. "Whereabouts?"

"Oxford, ma'am," said Sergeant O'Malley. "Whereabouts yourself?"

"London," said Emma. "Moved to Mitakihara though. Haven't heard British English in a while. It's good to find a fellow Brit."

"Heh, same here, ma'am," said Sergeant O'Malley. "We—."

Their TacComps pinged. The gap was closing.

"Shit," said O'Malley. "Can't this thing go any faster?"

"I should be able to give it a boost," said Emma as she looked over the map. It was a five minute run at a hundred kilometers per hour, three with her magic. "But we'll end up leaving the other's behind."

"I'll run interference," said Sasha. "When we get to the gap, drop me off. I'll hold off one of the pincers while the others catch up."

"No, you'll die," said Emma immediately. "Sasha, you don't have enough—."

"Get bent, Newbie," said Sasha. "You don't outrank me. Sergeant, do you hear me?"

"…Yes sir," said O'Malley in Human Standard. "Lieutenant Sinclair, I guess we'll…?"

"Yeah," said Emma. She climbed out of the IFV again and braced herself on the roof. The IFV to their right wiggled in its path, a salute of some sort. Emma sent a mental "good luck" at the soldiers inside, before forming her magic into a jet, the exhaust pointing behind to accelerate the IFV forwards.

She started slow, doing little except winding her magic into a tube, with well reinforced walls. With that complete, Emma began pulling air through it. There was a quiet whooshing noise, barely audible over the wind whipping past her and the turboshaft's howl, that quickly grew into a whistling shriek.

The IFV noticeably picked up speed as Emma pumped magic into the technique. The shrieking of the air jet grew louder as the IFV's velocity increased to one-ten, one-twenty, then one-thirty kilometers an hour. It was a decent boost, given that Emma was improvising with a technique designed to kill things more than propel them.

Unfortunately, the suddenly accelerating IFV was rather obvious.

"The squid are picking up the pace!" O'Malley sent over the battlenet. "Lieutenant, we're not going to make it!"

Emma grimaced. "Fatima," she called telepathically. "I'm going to be cut off."

"Can you punch through the enemy line?" asked Fatima.

"I'm not sure," said Emma. "My gem's not exactly in the best of places right now."

"…Do your best then," said Fatima. "I've put in a teleporter request. Hold out long enough for them to get to you. The rest of the company is tied up with providing cover to the rest of the line."

"How are they doing?" asked Emma.

"Ask them yourself when you get back to base," said Fatima. "Don't die, I still plan on court-martialing the shit out of you, Emma."

"Right," said Emma. "See you soon."

"Stay safe."

Emma looked over the map again. One and a bit minutes, and yes, the squid had already encircled them. It was a tenuous thing though, if Emma was going fast enough...

"Sergeant, I'm going to try and blast through," said Emma. "Hold on tight, we're going to see some fire."

"Understood," said O'Malley, relaying the command to his troops. "All units standing by."

"Sasha, I still think this is a bad idea," said Emma. "But you're right, I don't have authority over you. You'd beat me in a fight if it came down to it."

"…Thank you," said Sasha. "I'll... see ya' when I see ya'."

Emma grimaced and pushed more magic into her technique, tilting the jet slightly upwards to force the tires of the IFV onto the ground. They would need the steering.

"Five hundred meters to impact," noted Emma's TacComp.

Emma gulped.

"…Four hundred meters."

This was probably going to be painful.

"…Three hundred meters."

Emma could literally feel the lasers zeroing on her back. She hunkered down to minimize her profile.

"…Two hundred meters."

Lasers began impacting. Emma tucked her head in to avoid losing her body and grit her teeth as she felt her armor begin burning her skin from the impact.

"…One hundred meters."

Emma stifled a shout of pain as a laser made it through her back armor and burnt away part of her kidney. Magic quickly numbed it.

"…Impact in 3, 2—."

Emma finally leaped into the hatch and out of the line of fire. Moments later, Sasha had leaped out, magic flashing left and right as she tore into the wobbly squid lines. The IFV shuddered as it bounced over bodies and the abandoned trenches, still running on the momentum Emma had given it and slewing wildly back and forth as it caught air off of the random obstacles. It was all the occupants could do to keep from getting rattled to death.

"I should have grabbed a few cubes from you," said Sasha as she sprinted along side. Emma glanced at the girl's gem read out. It was dangerously low.

"Get inside!" Emma called out in alarm. "Come on, we're nearly through!"

"You'll never make it without me keeping them off your ass," said Sasha. The map readout was filling with a distressing number of red dots, it was true, but—

"There's a teleporter on its way, Sasha," said Emma. "Please, look, you can avenge Hisako later—!"

"Let me have this, Emma," said Sasha calmly. Emma could feel her magic from inside the vehicle. "It'll be alright. This'll slow the squid down enough that you can get away."

"No, Sasha, stop!" Emma shouted, jumping out of her seat in distress. Sasha's gem was getting close to the critical cutoff. Any more and she was going to burn out! "Please, this isn't going to—!"

A huge surge. Emma punched the wall of the IFV as a huge swathe of the red dots was instantly wiped out. There was a cascading effect that creeped out from Sasha's last known location, snuffing out the dots with terrifying ease.

Sasha's status indicator stopped transmitting.

"…Damn it," swore Emma. "Damn it!"

"We're nearly to the edge of the squid's advance column," said O'Malley. "Just a few hundred meters—."

There was a huge bang. Emma grabbed a handhold as the IFV swerved to the left.

"Dammit, sniper!" said a corporal. "We've lost the engine!"

"Get ready to run for it!" ordered O'Malley. "As soon as the vehicle slows down enough—!"

Then the world flipped with a tremendous roar. Emma caught a glimpse of bulkhead racing towards her before everything went black.

* * *

Emma was not sure if she was blind or if there was just no power.

It was just as well, her head hurt like it had been split in two.

…Actually, what was probably her brain she was feeling.

Going back to sleep was a good idea….

* * *

There was a spinning column of light in front of her.

Above it was a burning city, its buildings hanging off of a great domed roof as bodies fell upwards and were consumed by the column.

Slowly, Emma began walking forward, feeling herself get torn apart by the spinning column and become meshed into its whole. Somehow, this did not frighten her.

What frightened her was the sound of screaming as she spun round and round and round, the world whipping by.

Stop it. Stop the screaming. Stop, please!

Nothing happened. Emma felt herself being pulled at, stretched thin, then eaten away until nothing remained but her eyes, staring out at the burning city and the dying and the dead and the never to be.

Then her eyes were taken too, and everything went black. Nothing was everywhere, and everything was nothingness, except for the feeling of a hand running gently up her belly, towards her chest. Somebody whispered in her ear: "I love you."

Emma's eyes snapped shut as blinding white light filled her vision, the ground rough and gritty under her knees as she struggled to stay upright. The roar of wind filled her ears and then she felt something stab its way into her chest.

* * *

With a gasp, Emma woke up to excruciating pain. Everything was still dark, but Emma's soul gem decoys lent just enough light to see.

Emma felt around her chest. There was a large sliver of alloy wedged through her left breast, slicing apart her lung and part of the veins there. Apparently, fugue was an excellent thing. Using magic, she numbed the region, then pulled the sliver out. It still managed to hurt like a bitch.

Still, at least her body was repairing itself. Emma pulled a few more pieces of metal from her body before she took a moment to figure out where she was.

…It seemed that the IFV had flipped at some very high speed. There was a shattered mess where the front suspension had been, along with part of the main hatch, then a great hole near the top of the bulkhead.

Emma would have laughed if she didn't feel like she was about to throw up her other lung. Apparently they'd been hit with three AT Missiles. She was lucky to be alive.

Then again, as she felt her head, there was rather a lot of blood. Her TacComp wasn't working properly either. It was entirely possible that she'd actually died.

…Now that was a trip. Emma really did laugh this time, before coughing and hacking up bloody chunks of flesh. Ugh. From the heaviness of her limbs, it did feel like things weren't working very well. She wasn't sure if this meant that she'd actually died and the limbs had started to go necrotic, or if she'd just hit her head really, really hard.

With a groan, Emma managed to lever herself upright. Her backpack was still on, shockingly. She was lying on top of one of the members of the fireteam that had picked her up. She glanced down, and found that he was missing half his head. A groggy look around confirmed that everyone else was, indeed, dead.

"Great," Emma said to herself, getting to her feet. Blood was splashed all over the interior of the IFV. There were no dents the size of her head, but then again she rather expected her skull to cave if she wasn't intentionally reinforcing herself with magic.

Emma made her way to the hole in the top of the bulkhead. Since the IFV was now upside down, and slightly tilted, it was near her feet. Carefully, Emma lowered herself out, and crawled until she was clear of the hull, then flopped to the ground for a breather.

It was still raining, but now it was night time. That explained the lack of light. Emma could also smell the acrid stench of battle. Looking to her left and right, Emma saw several bodies up against the side of the IFV she'd been in, both human and squid.

Levering herself upwards again, Emma looked across the field. It looked like she'd been the first IFV to get hit. Moments later, the encircled remnants of the 24th must have hit the squid line.

...Somehow, the squid must have forgotten about her in the ensuing chaos.

Stunned, Emma lay back down. That was… the odds… there was no way….

Emma laughed again, this time in pure joy. That was it, she was seeing the Chaplain when she got back. She was alive. She was alive after getting shot by three AT missiles and a huge ass battle. The squid should have checked the bodies, should have found her gem and burned it with a plasma torch. The IFV could have been shot again, or had an artillery round dropped on it, or a Reaper blast, but none of that had happened.

If this wasn't evidence of a Goddess, then Emma didn't know what was.

Still, that brought up a slightly more important question. How was Emma going to get back?

Emma marshalled herself and thought this over as she carefully cleaned her soul gem. Her supply of grief cubes was not insubstantial, but it was now extremely limited. She would have to take care of herself and make sure she didn't use her magic to much.

That aside, there was little chance that Emma would have a patrol running by to maintain security. Judging by everything the squid had done so far, the Cephalopods weren't interested in properly conquering land. Instead, they burned major population centers to the ground, then deployed more troops to smaller areas accordingly. As they went, they destroyed the ability for guerrilla fighters to supply themselves. It turned into a siege of sorts, and nobody really survived it after the military pulled out of a hopeless system.

But the problem was the Line. The Line would be reinforced to hell and back, and there was no way Emma was sneaking through that. Sure, there might be a few random drones to dodge in the back, but at the line, it would be like going into a swimming pool full of sharks while you had a papercut. They wouldn't find you. No, they'd notice you instantly, circle you, and then rip you to pieces.

…Well, that would be something to worry about when she got closer to the Line. Her telepathy range was one hundred meters, but being near other girls let her use them as relays. That was obviously no longer applicable.

Emma summoned a halberd and used it to push herself up. Her gem, while rather dim, seemed to be holding steady, but her limbs were still wobbly. She'd need the support while she walked.

From where she stood, Emma could see Cluster 14. It was a bit of a hike, but there might be supplies the squid had overlooked there. Furthermore, Cluster 14 was the nearest high point from which Emma could make plans about what to do next. She would get to Cluster 14, climb the hill, and then figure out where to go from there.

Emma grinned. It was good to be alive.

* * *

The ground was torn up and slushy with water, blood, and ichor. Emma found it difficult to keep her balance in her damaged state. She'd found a piece of shattered axle to substitute for her halberd. It provided a certain degree of balance, but it kept slipping or squishing far too deeply into the mud ground. Rain water and her hair kept getting into her eyes. Explosions rumbling in from the distance promised great trials to come.

Emma found it both very difficult to care. It was similarly difficult to get the silly grin off her face. Who wouldn't be grinning stupidly in her situation? She was alive!

Of course, she would never discount the death of the soldiers around her, and at some level she was extremely distressed about this. Letting others handle her messes never sat well with her, and this was people getting killed to solve her problems. On top of that, Emma had no real plan, her grief cubes were low, and there were probably a myriad of things that could kill her. Technically speaking, she should really sit down and think this through, instead of letting her happiness run away from her. It was stupid and illogical and would probably get her killed.

But for now, Emma didn't care. She wiped water off her face again and hummed quietly to herself as she walked, following a rut made by one of, presumably Third Platoon's, IFVs. It did lead straight towards Cluster 14, after all, and the slightly compressed earth underneath it made things a little easier.

Emma thought about the Goddess too. It still seemed kind of silly to her, to be honest. Effervescent sentient aspects? Bleh. But…

Well the point of the Goddess was that She was looking out for magical girls, right? Emma wasn't entirely sure what that meant, of course, but there had to be some influence on sheer bullshit luck. "Luck" was what people called things turning out okay, even when it didn't look like it would. Sure, sometimes that happened as a regular human being, but luck couldn't really exist. That was like saying that some quality of a person was capable of shaping the universe in their favor in small, subtle ways.

That was kind of dumb.

But if you said that a DEITY was doing it, that made some more sense. There was absolutely positive evidence that the Goddess existed, Abigail had made that clear back before the drop. Emma had always depended on herself to get through her trials, and she would continue to do so. She couldn't control everything though, even if she was awake and not technically dead. On the football pitch, not knowing all the pieces to the puzzle could cost you the game. Here, Emma hadn't even been able to play.

And yet she'd come out ahead anyway.

This was… this should have been impossible. The odds should have been so stacked against her that nothing would have saved her. And Emma would have been okay with that. Not happy, obviously. She didn't want to die. But as far as deaths went, being blown up and not feeling any real pain before you passed wasn't terrible. In the line of duty, too, which was nice. Dying in a medical center was comparatively lame.

Instead, Emma was here, walking along towards Cluster 14. It was absurd. It shouldn't happen, but there she was.

Emma could dismiss it. It wouldn't be difficult. Sometimes, things worked out, and that was that. You didn't even need to believe in luck. But Emma couldn't do that. Just dismissing this out of hand was too outrageous for her. It would be somewhat like watching a football go arcing into the goal based on her plan, then dismiss it as all her team's work and she really wasn't that good. There were some people who did that, but Emma took credit when it was her due.

Similarly, Emma GAVE credit when it was due. She made sure her teammates knew what they had done well when they'd done it. It was why she'd been made team captain, not just because she could make a decent plan. And Emma wasn't going to stop that now, just like she wasn't going to stop relying on her own skills and planning to win.

No, credit was due where and when it was due, and this was obviously credit due to the Goddess. When she got back, and Emma was certain she was going to make it, especially with some help, she was going to thank the Goddess properly. She'd have to ask Abigail about what the procedure for—

Emma yelped as she slipped and crashed into the mud. She giggled to herself as she picked herself up. Best to keep her mind on the task at hand though.

"I'll build a stairway to paradise, with a new step every day…" Emma sang quietly. It was a heinously old song, from the 20th Century. Goddess, she didn't even remember when she'd heard it, only that it was part of her very embarrassing playlist of stupidly-old music.

Still, now that no one was around…

"I'm going to get there at any price," she continued. "Stand aside I'm on my way…

I've got the blues, and up above it's so fair…

Shoes, go on and carry me there…

I'll build a stairway to paradise,

With a new step every day…!"


	15. Girly in the Sky With Diamonds

_The coolest part about being a magical girl? Well… I guess the coolest part is how I can get shot in the gut, lose half my internal organs, and still crush a squid's head with one hand._

_-Captain Isabel Inouye, A Company, 22nd Regiment, 6th Magical Division , 1st Army Group of the Mekong_

* * *

_It's always really odd fighting with a magical girl on the battlenet. If you're lucky, they're at least twenty and know what they're doing, but they still sound like they've just started puberty._

_-Sergeant Rebecca Smith, 3rd Platoon, D Company, 8th Regiment, 2nd Magical Division, 3rd Army Group of the Yangtze_

* * *

Emma's good mood persisted until she reached a point one hundred meters distant from Cluster 14. Emma came to an abrupt halt as a line in the sand appeared in front of her.

It was a series of bodies, sprayed backwards as if tossed by some immense hand.

Emma's breath hitched as she saw the unit insignia. They were all members of Third Platoon.

By now Emma's limbs were recovered enough for her to run forward and slide to her knees in the mud, double checking that yes, it was her command that lay there.

"Oh no," Emma whispered. Behind her, she realized, were the planting posts of a field deployable ablative fortification. They had been twisted and warped by an explosion, probably a suicide drone or missile. The ruined wreck of an IFV was nearby, slewed to the right to provide cover. Emma could see more bodies behind it.

Goddess, it had been a slaughter.

Emma walked forward slowly, now finding squid dead lying here and there, punched through with holes. They were greatly outnumbered by human bodies, mixed between the 24th Regiment's remnants and Emma's platoon.

From the way the IFVs were positioned, Ingrid had evidently tried to hold the line here, to buy the remainder of the division time to pull back. In her mind's eye, Emma watched the vehicles flying forward, spitting autocannon and being met with a barrage of missile fire. Those that survived the impact disgorged their compliment of troops and began to rain fire on the enemy, but….

Emma paused and kicked over one of the squid dead. The rear shoulder plate was emblazoned with a familiar symbol.

Shock Troopers.

Emma grit her teeth and closed her eyes tightly. It had taken her and Rene nearly to exhaustion to fight off three squad's worth of Shock Troopers in the last sim she'd been in. Heavy armor and energy shields made each of the squid's elite assault troops equivalent to a small tank.

For the first time since she had contracted, the cold weight of guilt settled into Emma's stomach.

They had needed her. They had needed her firepower. She was the most effective distraction in the company, an AOE fighter that could suppress half a kilometer of infantry if she so wished. She shouldn't have tallied in the battlefield. She should have withdrawn as quickly as possible. If she hadn't— if she had just—

A deep, stilling breath. No. No. She… she had screwed up. She had screwed up very, very badly. But she would get through this. It was… it was just like in football. If you made a bad call, you rolled with the consequences and learned from them. She could not let her mind go down the rabbit hole. To do so would make her fade from regret and guilt. Poor repayment for the blood shed by Third Platoon and the 24th Regiment.

There was nothing more to do but keep walking.

* * *

Emma counted three lines of resistance before she got to the Cluster proper. Each was strewn with dead, the last of a desperate gamble to distract and buy time. From the looks of it, the action had done its job. The wide planted steps of a cephalopod heavy tank, converted for the slushy earth, tramped past her as she walked. Blast craters of baked earth, rendered back into mud by the rain, scattered across the front of the hills.

Emma paused beside the hulk of one of the tanks. Its form was immense, taking up three times as much space as Emma's apartment on Earth. The rear of the tank fountained outwards as if something had burst out of it. Emma looked through to the fist sized hole in the front. Such was the effect of an anti-tank railgun.

Other weapons had been employed to startling effect. Here, a tank lay gutted by a powerful hand-held laser system. There, mines and rockets had blasted another to oblivion. The face of the hill was ashen from lasers and high explosives. Team B-4's position had been… over there, to her right.

Emma hovered indecisively beside the shattered tank. Morbid curiosity pushed her towards B-4's assigned emplacement. Intellectually though, she knew they had to be dead. The sheer carnage she had seen bode poorly for anyone. And avoiding people she knew would dull the guilt.

A beat. The rain pattered on the alloy of the tank. More explosions, from the continuing attack on Helsinberg, rumbled in form the distance.

With a sigh, Emma turned right.

* * *

The walk towards Team B-4's assigned position was difficult.

Emma nearly turned back twice and dragged her feet the whole way. She desperately needed to see what had happened to the effusive team, but dreaded what she would find. Logic pulled her one way, emotion pulled her the other. It was like walking on razor wire. It didn't matter how or where she walked, because the wire would still cut her feet.

The question was whether or not emotional suppression would kick in, Emma mused. Sometimes, it didn't work for a girl, but sometimes it managed to to prevent them from burning their gem. It was an unanticipated problem that they were apparently working on in the Prometheus and Zeus Institutes. Maybe Ayumi could tell her more.

Emma paused at a shattered IFV, picking through its remnants for… something. Maybe something could be picked out of the wreckage. She did know that the communications hub was at the front of the vehicle. Perhaps, if it was undamaged, she could find something useful. Besides, it was always better to be prepared, right?

The interior of the IFV was scorched with fire, the occupants having bailed out cleanly but their equipment destroyed. From the looks of it, this had once been an LMG team's vehicle. Emma found no serviceable weaponry as she picked through the wreckage. The comm-hub was scalded and warped, shut and rendered un-openable by the fire.

There was a screaming of metal-on-metal as Emma shoved the blade of her halberd into the side and pushed. With a snap, the access panel popped off, bouncing with a loud clang into the opposite wall. Emma banished her weapon and waited, listening in case anything had heard.

All clear.

She looked inside the comm-hub. The interior was dark and shadowy, even for implant-mediated vision. Emma took the soul gem decoy out of her hair and placed it inside for light.

"Oh, that's fantastic," she breathed, delighted at her find. The comms-hub was burnt and scorched near the access panel, the heat penetrating through the metal and insulation. However, the interior, where the more important equipment was stored, was relatively intact. Carefully, Emma reached in and pulled out an almost-pristine data transmitter, it's interface ports entirely functional.

That was the most important part. Emma's TacComp and implants were definitely malfunctioning, probably as a result of her body's catatonic state earlier. She wasn't sure if they were physically broken, or if they had merely shutdown and never rebooted. But with the vastness of software installed on these transmitters, maintenance was easiest conducted via VR linkup. This worked both ways, and Emma would be able to self-diagnostic if she could find VR cables to link with the transmitter.

The most likely place to find that would be in her command bunker.

Emma placed her prize into her backpack and took a deep breath. There was no longer any reason for her to delay. Working implants and the ability to feed and obtain data were a top priority, especially if the increasing frequency of explosions in the distance was anything to go by. She needed to move on, quickly, and get herself back to full capacity.

Apprehensively, Emma set off at a jog towards Team B-4's position.

* * *

Somehow, the position Team B-4 had occupied was almost completely unblemished. Emma took this as a good sign. Her visit earlier had been at the staging area, at the base of the hill. Here, at the top, B-4 had occupied a pillbox overlooking the plain below. The pillbox was accessed from the staging area via a sheltered stairwell, with branching offshoots that went into power generators, water and food supply, and a dry latrine.

Apart from a few chips of missing concrete here and there, the pillbox had apparently been overlooked. Emma shimmied herself in through the opening. The floor was littered with discarded missile tubes and powerpacks. Emma let her spirits rise a bit. It seemed impossible for the pillbox to have gone unnoticed, but the room was clean of ammunition, implying that whoever had been here had retreated under their own power.

A short hall way went out and to her right. The steps were a little steep, but Emma was feeling a lot better from when she'd first woken up. The small generator was offline, clearly blown up with a sabotaging charge. A few spent power packs were there too. B-4 had probably paused to perform maintenance.

Emma continued descending. She paused at food and water storage and stuffed as many packaged rations as she could fit into her backpack. Technically outdated, the rations were still produced for cases of emergency. The squid never ate them unless they were trapped, which was a rare enough occurrence.

Emma also clipped a water bottle onto the side of her pack. She could fill it later when she finished the bottle. Emma's modified digestive system could handle impurities and toxins in the water, though it would be best for her tastebuds if she could find a relatively clean source to refill it.

Overall, though, it seemed like B-4 had managed a clean getaway.

Further down the steps. Emma found the first evidence of a casualty: a discarded pauldron. It was inscribed with "Magnusson", and had a wide patch burnt out of the bottom corner. Magnusson had been hit then. Perhaps a sniper, at extreme range? They had waited till here to treat him for some reason. Or maybe the sniper had been what pushed them out?

Emma wasn't sure. There wasn't enough information. She continued down the steps, glad to be out of the rain for a bit, though she'd be back in it soon enough.

The bottom of the steps led to a barred, alloy door. It was locked from the inside, and frozen shut due to the lack of power. Unless she blasted the door open, Emma wasn't going to get out this way.

Well, maybe, if she…. Emma pried open the security system's casing where it was mounted on the wall. A bit of fiddling with the wires, and she had her data transmitter wired in. There was just enough power stored in the transmitter's capacitors, used for high power transmissions and as backup power to the device, to activate the security system.

With a beep, the door opened. Emma grinned. Her implants were working then. She let the transmitter hang from the wires, they'd be fine for a bit, and went to wedge her halberd into the door mechanism. As soon as the wires were unplugged, the door would try to close. Her halberd should delay it long enough for her to jump through.

Emma took a deep breath and counted from three. As soon as she reached one, she powered the transmitter off and yanked the wires out. Her halberd shrieked as it gouged into the door frame, but did its job. Emma was through to the other side and into the rain easily, the door slamming shut behind her as she dismissed the halberd.

Emma now stood in the staging area, once again being soaked. She blew a strand of hair from her mouth and contemplated the area. To the side were tire tracks. Another good sign. Emma put the transmitter back into her backpack and kept walking, following the tracks. If they led out and around the hills, towards the rearward lines, then maybe…?

Her heart stuttered. The tracks first curved outwards, but then quickly curved back in and headed towards the command bunker. Emma followed the path with increasing trepidation. Here, now, she found corpses. Surprisingly, few of them were human. Most of them were cephalopod, and many wore the insignia unique to the Shock Troopers. Huge holes gaped in their torsos.

Ah. Anti-armor. B-4 must have realized Ingrid was in distress and come to her aid. Emma couldn't remember exactly what B-4 was loaded out with, but she was willing to bet they'd had the same sort of explosive flechettes she did.

Emma paused to look over the shallow valley formed by the cluster's peaks. It seemed like this trail of dead was the only real evidence of humans doing much of any damage. The rest of the position seemed either abandoned or—

The rest of her thought went uncompleted as she saw a pair of IFVs parked in front of the command bunker. Or rather, the remains of two. One them had bodies lying around it. With a sinking heart, Emma broke out into a run. There were few teams she had ended up knowing well, but—

Oh no.

Emma dropped to her knees besides Magnusson's mangled corpse. The body had been blasted to pieces by, it looked like a shotgun. Melon sized chunks were missing, the only identifier the strip on the new pauldron. Emma felt a her heart seize painfully. She hadn't known him very long, but Magnusson had been the friendliest soldier she'd met in her short career.

Was this what it would be like forever? Would she always feel this way about the people under her command? It wasn't clear which scared her more, the prospect of feeling this pain again, or the prospect of becoming dulled to it.

Emma carefully unclasped Magnusson's helmet. His eyes were wide and staring, glazed over with death. The rain wet them as she stared. They appeared to glimmer with tears, the water spilling down across his face. Emma solemnly reached out and pinched the eyelids shut, before pulling Magnusson's ID Chip from its slot in the collar of his armor and placing it in a pocket of her backpack. These weren't always recoverable. Each one was valuable.

Emma worked her way around the IFV. Shun and Reynolds lay behind the vehicle. Shun had been the victim of a sniper, his entire head and neck vaporized, the ID chip burnt away. Reynolds was in better shape, his body merely shot once and his neck snapped. A sidearm was clutched in his hand.

Eyes stinging, Emma placed Reynolds' ID Chip into her backpack, then turned to the entrance of the command bunker. The door had been blown away.

The inside was an abattoir.

Bodies were stacked up like firewood. At the end, a spray of black soot and the remnants of a tripod revealed that one of the heavy weapons fire teams had pulled back with the command team, laying down murderous suppressive fire until their ammunition had run dry. Emma could see empty crates from where she picked her way through the piled cephalopod dead. Without suppressive fire, one of the squid must have gotten a missile shot in.

She hadn't known the heavy weapons teams very well, and she suddenly regretted it. Seeing B-4 dead was like being stabbed in the chest, but it seemed… disrespectful to have never gotten to known someone in life. Emma could only bow solemnly at the incinerated bodies in the atrium, thanking them for their service.

The door to the operations room had been blown off as well. Emma felt a sense of deja vu as she stepped inside. The tables, heavy and armored, were the only main difference. They had been placed into a rough barricade across the hallway to the electronics room. A single squid, its head lolling at an impossible angle, lay in front. Off to the left, Ingrid's consoles had been riddled with shrapnel, but were otherwise intact. There, to the left, had been where Beckett and Han had waited while Emma paced.

Emma shut her eyes. Tears squeezed their way out anyway. There was no way this ended well.

Just over the barriers, Emma found Han. Her helmet has been blown away from a close range shotgun blast. This hadn't killed her. A hole blasted through her abdomen, wide enough for Emma to climb through, had done that. She had died with a twisted grimace of rage on her face.

Emma wasn't sure if the Goddess did anything for non-contracted, but she hoped that She did. Nobody should die like this.

With a shuddering sigh, Emma climbed over the barrier, taking care not to step on Han's body. The ten feet to the electronics room felt like ten thousand miles. Emma had to consciously force herself to walk forward. The hallway turned sharply left.

Emma stepped into the shattered remnants of the electronics room.

…It had been an expected end. Emma felt like she had been punched in the gut anyway. Slowly, she sank to her knees. Everyone… everyone was dead. Beckett lay, hacked open by a bayonet. The squid who had killed him was sprawled across Beckett, gaping hole in its torso belying how Beckett had managed to run the squid through as he died. The members of Team C-4 were scattered across the floor, blown apart by explosives or by close range shotgun bursts.

The cephalopod dead were few, but notable. Where a soldier had managed to close to CQC, armor-mounted melee and explosive weapons had done their job. Here was a squid's limb, hacked cleanly off, its owner's remains strewn across the console behind it from a small rocket burying itself in the chest cavity, then exploding. Over there, a cephalopod was cleanly beheaded, and another one was blackened from electrical discharge.

It had… it had been a fitting end. Somehow, Third Platoon had put up a strong enough fight to draw the attention of the cephalopod attack. Somehow, in the face of overwhelming odds, in the face of a platoon of tanks bearing down on them, they had managed to wound the enemy advance.

In a corner of the room was Ingrid. She had died just like all the others, body riddled with shrapnel from a grenade. Emma pulled herself to her feet and went to each of the bodies to collect ID chips, making her way towards the Warrant Officer.

Emma sat down heavily beside Ingrid's body. The ID chips were a pastel blue. It was supposed to be symbolic, somehow, but Emma didn't remember why. She deposited the chips into her backpack.

Guilt and shame crashed over her. It… it wasn't supposed to end like this. Not for Third Platoon. They had deserved better. They deserved to have their old commander, back before they had been pulled away to deploy in Samsara. They didn't deserve… her. A green, newbie magical girl who didn't know what she was doing and was to arrogant to realize she was screwing up.

"I'm sorry," Emma whispered. Only ghosts heard her.

Listlessly, Emma fished her soul gem out and stared at it. It was heavily clouded, barely giving any light and getting dimmer by the second. With a snort, Emma let it drop with a clink, then sagged sideways.

What was it she had said earlier? "Learn and move forward"? What a joke. What hope did she have to accomplish anything? This was the merest sentimentality, a child's prayer to a Goddess of dubious existence. Who would look out for a failure like her?

Slowly, Emma slipped to the floor, tears tracking down her face as she curled in on herself. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, shutting out what little she could see in the dim light of her soul gem decoys.

The only sound was that of her breathing.

* * *

It was wet.

An immense pressure pushed against her. Emma tried to breath. All she inhaled was water.

Choking, Emma sank into infinite blackness.


	16. Grace

_We are who we are. War teaches us many things, but this is the most important._ <

_-General Magdalena Zakharova, General Commander of the First Field Army, First Army Group of the Nile_

* * *

_Bow not your head, weary maiden, though trouble line your way. The night is ever passing, giving way to brightest day._ <

_-Amateur Poetry, attributed to 2nd Lt. Cassie Rowling, deceased 2442, age 10_

* * *

The towers of Canary Wharf stretched up and over Emma's head. She felt grass prickling against the backs of her knees. Looking to her left, Emma saw the familiar stands, decorated in red and white bunting, of South London's Stadium One, where everything from football matches to music concerts to public celebrations were staged.

Emma had been there several times to watch the London Arsenal, a football club with centuries of tradition, do battle against the other clubs across Great Britain. She had a jersey in her room, back home, and had played for the Junior League team attached to them.

Smiling nostalgically, Emma turned to her right. She blinked in surprise. There was her team, doing their warmups before a match. They were dressed in the home colors, red with white sleeves and a black cuff. Moments later, a smallish figure ran up. The team welcomed her, one of them scolding her for being late. Emma watched herself laugh sheepishly and apologize profusely.

Emma's smile broadened. She remembered that game, where she'd managed a stunning hook shot that had bounced off the post and into the goal. That was right before Amelia had advanced to the Youth League, and she'd handed the team captaincy over to Emma. She'd been the youngest person on the team at the time, but half the team was leaving with Amelia. They'd needed someone to lead, and Emma had been declared the best one for the job. It had been an honor.

It occurred to Emma that she wasn't breathing. This didn't trouble her very much, but perhaps breathing was something that should be done? Emma inhaled deeply and nearly gagged as the harsh taste of salt water flooded her mouth. Trained battle instinct kept her from coughing, but she didn't have the talent to convert water into oxygen, much less—

—She was fine.

Emma felt her panic subside as she slowly pumped water in and out of her lungs. It was hard work, the fluid of greater viscosity than air. Slowly, she got used to it. Her team had disappeared from the sidelines as she lay there breathing slowly, so she decided to sit up. It was a little more difficult than usual, and she quickly found out why.

It seemed that she'd become a mermaid.

Well that certainly explained the breathing-water-thing.

Emma suddenly wished she had a cigarette. It wasn't that she smoked, but it would probably look really cool if she were to calmly light up a smoke while considering her situation. Instead, she rummaged in the pockets of her hoody and found a package of crisps. Nodding to herself sagely, Emma opened the package and extracted one.

"This," she said to herself, eyeing the sliver of potato. "Is unusual."

Emma considered her tail as she munched her way through the crisps. The end didn't feel that much different from her feet, really, and she could flop it back and forth quite easily. A bit of flexing let her paddle the entire thing, though it tipped her backwards with a thud and a series of lost crisps.

Giving the crisps up as a bad job, Emma levered herself off the ground with a grunt and hovered in midwater. A gentle wave of her tail sent her drifting upwards, towards the roof of Stadium One. The awning had been rolled back, letting her swim straight up and through.

Stadium One was underneath a great deal of London's transit system, but attempts had been made to avoid covering the field anymore than was strictly necessary. Emma swam slowly through the empty streets. It did not occur to her that this was unusual. On the contrary, she found the silence rather pleasant. No—

—bombs, explosions, fire, death—

—sounds to distract her from the sun shining over head, the light drifting through the water and the pipes. She paused to check a street sign for directions. It was rusted and pitted, great holes punched through it with—

—lasers, railguns, cannon fire—

—some sort of hole punch, to make it lighter probably. Emma turned left towards the Shizuki Business Complex and swam up, towards the five hundred and eighty-second level. Hashimoto and Sinclair Investments and Securities had been founded by Emma's great-grandfather with a man named Clarence Hashimoto. The two businessmen had grown enormously successful working with the first few colonies, operating off planet but managing everything from London.

Emma's grandfather, Jonathan, nearly destroyed it. Such was the fate of many a business. Jonathan Sinclair unfortunately hadn't inherited his father's particular knack for investments, and all seemed lost. That was until the company was bought out by Shizuki Holdings Company, incorporated, and the offices moved to Shizuki Tower Three.

It was funny, most businesses didn't see the sort of iterative family inheritance that Hashimoto and Sinclair had seen. Yet it had happened. This was considered odd, but ultimately unremarkable. Some things were genetic, after all. Ami Hashimoto was still running the London offices, and technically Emma and Anna were supposed to jointly be taking over their parent's positions in the headquarter offices in Mitakihara.

Emma did not care about this history though. She was the exception. She had been going for a career in football before the move to Japan. Emma swam up through the empty tubes and walkways to stare unhappily through the office window where her parents used to work. There they were, the strings of money threading through their hands as they manipulated accounts hither and yon.

The strings stretched out to the windows and doors. Emma opened the window. A rush of water nearly pulled her in and buffeted her parents about. They swayed in the watery breeze, but returned back to their original position.

Spitefully, emma grabbed a handful of strings and tugged. The strings ripped out of her parents' hands with the sound of ripping paper. Red blood gushed into the water, spreading in a growing bloom. Emma's parents screamed as they caught on fire, crumpling to the floor and dispersing into flecks of ash.

What, no, she didn't want to—

The fire spread down the strings. Shocked and horrified, Emma barely managed to drop the strings in time to avoid being burned. She backpaddled, but crashed into yet more strings. As she struggled, the lines twined around her tail and arms and throat and the fire was getting closer and it was burning her it hurt it hurt it HURT—

—Emma coughed, seawater rushing out of her mouth with each heave. With a gasp, she managed to get herself to her hands and knees before she vomited up more sea water. Finally, the water subsided, and Emma could see where she was.

It was a beach. The beach stretched into the distance as far she could see, nothing but sand and sand and sand. The sand was a shade of white that nearly blinded her. Emma stumbled painfully to her feet and looked behind her. The ocean was a bright azure, clear as glass all the way to the bottom, where palm trees swayed paradoxically over a small resort house.

Emma backed away from the water, then turned and trudged to a sand dune. She dropped to the ground bonelessly, her limbs and joints protesting movement of any kind. Sand settled into her clothing and crawled into her pants. Emma fished a soggy packet of crisps from her hoodie and contemplated their soaked contents.

The crisps were upended onto her jeans, whereupon Emma mashed slowly them together to form a mound. This was set aside to bake in the sun.

Time passed. Overhead, the sun beat down with scorchingly hot rays. Emma's skin dried and peeled from the salt and the heat, cracking and splitting as she lay against the dune. She needed water and shade, but neither could be found here.

Emma suddenly found herself sitting outside the gates of a large castle. She looked out to sea. The ocean was still there. She looked behind her. The sand was still there. She looked up. The sun had not moved.

Emma got to her feet and stepped across the drawbridge to the gate of the castle. She knocked twice. The doors creaked open. A piano gently plinked its way through a recurring melody, followed by the deep sigh of the piano's base notes and a violin's gentle refrain.

It was the most soothing piece of music Emma had heard in a long time. She closed her eyes to listen more closely.

"It's called Spiegel im Spiegel, for Violin and Piano," said a girl's voice to Emma's right. "It was composed by a man named Arvo Pärt, from Estonia."

"Where's Estonia?" asked Emma.

"It's in Europe," said the voice. A hand landed upon her shoulder. "I'd tell you more, but you seem tired. Would you like to rest a bit?"

Emma sighed. "I would."

The hand gently tugged her backwards, until Emma fell and landed gently on a bed. With a sigh, she turned over and pulled a pillow towards her, snuggling into the soft cotton fabric and letting her tired body relax. The sheets were pulled over her naked form, just heavy enough to ward off a chill but light enough that she felt no discomfort.

"Sleep well," said another voice, older, wiser, female. A gentle kiss was placed upon Emma's head, before she faded from all thought and sensation.

* * *

…

* * *

Emma snapped awake with a gasp, hand feeling for a gun that wasn't there. She sat bolt upright, reaching out with her magic as she—

—encountered absolutely nothing. She was sitting on a bed, sheets pooled around her waist, with a gentle spring-time sun wending in through the curtains on her right. With a sigh, Emma fell back. The sound of a violin drifted through her room. Emma lay staring at the top of the bed's four posts for a solid minute, before she climbed out of bed. A simple white dress waited for her on a side table. There were no underclothes, but Emma found she was not terribly bothered by this.

The dress now on, Emma made her way out the door and down a small flight of steps into what looked like a common area. A fireplace, cold but well swept, was to one side, and a variety of tables, chairs, and sofas were scattered around the room. Emma followed the sound of music out of the room and onto a covered walkway.

The walkway ran around a garden full of gently pink roses, heavy and in full bloom. Each bloom was unique, each bush carefully trimmed and maintained. A fountain tinkled in the center, a table and chairs beside it. Emma appreciated the aesthetics, but ignored these in favor of following the music down the walkway and around the corner.

A full concert orchaestra swelled into being as Emma turned and found herself walking down the rows of a concert hall. She paused and glanced back. The walkway had turned into a lobby.

Somewhat alarmed, but not feeling threatened, Emma continued walking. A ticket was on the ground in front of her. Emma picked it up.

"Row B, seat 1," read Emma. She looked down the empty concert hall and saw two heads in row B. One pink, one blue, sitting in seats two and three, respectively, from the aisle.

Intrigued, Emma made her way down. She took her seat beside pink.

"How did you sleep?" asked Pink.

"I feel a lot better," said Emma honestly. She turned to look at the person she was addressing and found a girl her age, handing a bag of popcorn to her.

"The concession stand really does a good job with these," said Pink, smiling enthusiastically. "I hope the music isn't too old for you."

"I've heard worse," said Emma, taking the popcorn with a nod of thanks. She tried a few. They tasted of cheese and garlic. "What's your name?"

"What is yours?" asked Pink.

"I'm—," Emma began, before stopping short. "…I'm… I don't remember."

"Hm, that is problematic," said Pink. "Oh well. Look, the film is starting."

Emma looked up. The hall had turned into theater. She saw two girls, about age six, running through a grassy field, laughing. The two wore identical clothing, had very similar faces, but the one doing the chasing was just a little different from the other.

Strings swelled in, powering over the crunch of popcorn kernels as Emma ate. The girls grew up. The chasing girl now had stopped, pausing and then lingering and then staying beside a table of papers and pencils. The running girl looked a little sad, before she turned and picked up a football, and began bouncing it on her head.

At first, both girls looked back at each other, as if waiting for the other to follow, but they eventually moved on.

The key of the music shifted. The girls were now being buffeted by winds. The girl by the table quickly braced her arms against her papers and caught them before they flew off. The footballer tried to stay with her ball, but couldn't. It bounced away and into a river, which quickly built into a roaring rapids.

Crying, the footballer turned to the girl by the table. With the winds dying down now, the girl was able to pull the footballer into an embrace and comfort her. Sniffling, the footballer let herself be guided to the table, where both girls set about with the papers and pencils.

"Here."

Emma blinked and looked down. A handkerchief was being offered to her.

"Oh," said Emma. "Thank you."

Drops of water fell from Emma's eyes and landed on the handkerchief. Emma set the popcorn aside and wiped her eyes.

Emma was confused. "Why am I crying?"

"Because you remember," said Pink.

Emma blinked. She remembered when she had first arrived in Mitakihara, the despair she had felt when she found out that there was effectively no football league there. She remembered retreating to her room, hiding under the bed, and crying for hours.

Her life had ended that day. Or at least, it had felt like it had.

"It still hurts," said Emma, biting her lip. "I… I could have wished to be able to play again. That would have been great, to have a team to play with once again. I miss it."

"Sometimes, though, we can't change the circumstances around us, can we?" asked Blue. She sighed wistfully. "Even if you give it everything you have."

"No, we can't," said Emma. She swallowed thickly as the footballer grew, both in size and in discontent. She recognized herself now, remembered all the things she had done. All the things she had hated with a passion, and how much she had wanted to go back to London.

But as with all things, that had faded with time, hadn't it?

"…Nothing is forever," said Emma. "I… I had forgotten."

Pink nodded. The movie ended with a rattle and a hum. Emma breathed a deep, shaky sigh. Pink touched her shoulder gently. "You don't have to go. If you would like, you can say here."

"I really do need to leave, though," said Emma. She swallowed again, and handed Pink back her handkerchief. "My platoon died, and I can't let that go to waste. Thank you for your hospitality, and for helping me remember."

"A lot of wishes just need a little encouragement to blossom fully," said Pink. She stood now, radiant in white, amber eyes looking at Emma with pride and confidence. The theater had disappeared into an infinite star field. "We like to help out when we can."

"You still haven't fulfilled your wish, after all," said Blue. "You can do better." She was clothed for battle, a white cape slung about her shoulders and fastened with a golden clasp. "It's going to get dark and scary out there, but we know you can do it."

"Don't be afraid," continued the Goddess. "Remember, the darkness will always pass. You have the strength to stand up to it."

"And if you can't, don't forget about your friends. They'll always be there for you," said Blue. She glanced at the Goddess, almost guiltily. "Even if sometimes, you can't see it."

"I understand," said Emma. Her costume swirled into place upon her body, halberd appearing in her grasp. "I won't forget your advice. Thank you, again. For everything."

The Goddess smiled. Blue nodded respectfully.

"You're very welcome."

A bright flash of pink.

* * *

In the bunker, Emma's body lay still.

Her soul gem glimmered dimly.

The light, the single shining point within, flickered.

Once.

Twice.

And held.


	17. Counterattack

Light years away, a fleet stood poised. The array of ships, formed into a deep wedge formation, hovered in deep space.

General Roland Erwynmark lay within his command chair aboard the battlecruiser _Arminius,_ his flagship. The 6th Fleet of the Nile had been reshuffled as a heavy strike force, to arrive in force at the system of New Amur. The general orders had been simple: destroy the enemy.

Easy to say, but difficult in practice.

The squid were counting on speed and power to overwhelm human defenses and take the core world of Samsara. Despite the massive advances they had achieved, the hoped for conquest of Samsara had not happened.

Now, when they were vulnerable and reorganizing for a more sustained push, was the time to strike.

It wasn't long now. Erwynmark's plans were laid, his officers ready, and the ships at full capacity. The General Staff had given him authority to begin the attack at his discretion just a few hours ago.

All that remained was for Roland to give the order.

Still, this was not an attack given lightly. Even under a certain degree of emotional suppression, even having served for years in this capacity, Erwynmark was given pause as he considered the potential for tragedy his attack would involve. His fleet could be destroyed. So to, could the system of New Amur be rendered uninhabitable. Even if he won, the 6th could suffer such horrendous casualties that humanity would never be able to recover. So much depended on the intelligence being correct...

Erwynmark sighed, and sank himself deeper into the command state. He was stalling, he knew.

A single word passed through his mind.

"Begin."


End file.
